This Week in Startups - Audio

By ThisWeekInStartups.com

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Description

Jason Calacanis and a rotating group of guest experts bring you this weekly take on the best, worst, most outrageous and interesting stories from the world of Web companies. Calacanis, a podcasting pioneer, gives you an insider's look at what's happening in the tech industry with his trademark blunt style and good humor. Looking to start your own company? Need strategies for improving your business or motivating your team? Just want to catch up on what's happening in Silicon Valley and beyond? Your journey begins here.

Patty McCord was a key member of Reed Hasting’s epic run in building Netflix from a quirky Blockbuster competitor into Hollywood’s dominant creator of entertainment, with 110m+ global subscribers -- on pace to create the largest paid subscription service in history. Patty co-created the famous “Netflix Culture Deck," and today talks to Jason about how to create a winning culture as outlined in her new book, "Powerful: Building a Culture of Freedom and Responsibility."

Satya Patel of Homebrew on 80+ investments, betting on founders with a mission, solving a problem over building a business, funding "phases" not stages, portfolio stars, & the critical importance of boards & organizational muscle memory

Today, entrepreneur Andrew Mason (Groupon, Detour) is in the studio with Jason to demo Descript, his audio editing & transcription tool for podcasters. A simple and seamless tool that aims to revolutionize content & catapult the booming podcast industry into the stratosphere, Descript launches today with a $5m raise from Andreessen Horowitz.

As populations grow, and climates change, could cities be our salvation? With the right infrastructure, urban areas or megaregions can be the most carbon & economic efficient habitations. But cities face countless problems, in housing shortages, broken transportation, overflowing waste, and more. With Urban.us, Shaun Abrahamson & Stonly Baptiste seed startups solving for challenges to make our cities better and our futures more hopeful. Shaun & Stonly talk to Jason about what they're working on, why cities are so critical, what they look for in startups, which problems they are tackling, and much more.

Fish consumption is on the rise, but the earth's exploitable fish supply is dwindling. And becoming more polluted. And expensive. Finless Foods is looking to solve this scarcity with biotechnology. CEO Mike Selden explains his clean fish, an affordable, healthy, sustainable seafood he's growing with cutting-edge cell culture tech. And Jason tastes it!

In "Angel" episode 10, Jason talks with Matt Brezina, angel investor in over 65 startups, including Dropbox, Cruise & Ring, and also founder of Xobni & Sincerely. Matt shares how & why he got into investing, his critical formative time in YC, the lasting influence of Paul Graham, meeting Drew Houston (failing to hire him, but succeeding in investing in Dropbox down the road...), learning sales from his mom, mistakes letting ego interfere with business, why he loves Twitter, the future of transportation, his belief in the power of founder-builders and investing in their careers...and much more.

E781: Matrix Partners’ David Skok breaks down how to get inside your buyer’s head to increase funnel conversion rates; Maren Kate Donovan’s lessons from building Zirtual to $11m/yr & losing it overnight

Filmed at LAUNCH SCALE 2017: Matrix Partners' David Skok breaks down how to get inside your buyer's head to increase funnel conversion rates; Maren Kate Donovan's lessons from building Zirtual to $11m/yr & losing it overnight

E779: Brian Armstrong, Coinbase & Tim Draper, DFJ on the state of cryptocurrency’s maturing market: ICOs as new funding vehicle, disruption of VC, the end of fiat, rise of open source, & the continued dominance & resiliency of bitcoin

Filmed at DFJ Summit 11/16/17: Brian Armstrong, Coinbase & Tim Draper, DFJ on the state of cryptocurrency's maturing market: ICOs as new funding vehicle, disruption of VC, the end of fiat, rise of open source, & the continued dominance & resiliency of bitcoin

E778: LAUNCH Scale: Greylock’s Josh Elman (prev. FB, Twitter) breaks down the only metric that matters for hyper-growth; Talla’s Rob May (prev. Backupify) presents his step-by-step guide for whether blockchain/ICO is right for your startup

Filmed at LAUNCH Scale 2017: Greylock's Josh Elman (prev. FB, Twitter) breaks down the only metric that matters for hyper-growth; Talla's Rob May (prev. Backupify) presents his step-by-step guide for whether blockchain/ICO is right for your startup.

E777: Startups on a mission: AID:Tech uses blockchain to prevent fraud & corruption by issuing digital identities to the undocumented; RoboKind robots teach social & emotional skills to children with autism

Today: two startups making a difference in the world. First, AID:Tech uses blockchain to prevent donation fraud by issuing digital identities to the undocumented -- thus combatting the 4.4 trillion dollars lost each year because of fraud corruption and lack of transparency. Jason talks to co-founder Naill Dennehy. Second, RoboKind robots teach social & emotional skills to children with autism. This technology is very effective, as these children have trouble with traditional therapy; the robots' curriculum engage them 87% of the time, compared to 3% with therapists using the same curriculum. Co-founder Richard Margolin joins remotely with the robots to demo.

At LAUNCH SCALE 2017, Jason sits down with two leaders defining the future of investment. Chamath Palihapitiya, who grew Facebook and went on to found VC powerhouse Social Capital, sets us straight on the state of venture capital and markets today, and what we need to do to win. It’s a turbulent time to say the least; investors need to help founders hunker down and restructure how they’re spending money and get their business models working for escape velocity. (Hint: this does not include the use of ICOs, for which Chamath has many choice words….) Next is David Eun, President of Samsung NEXT who talks to Jason about his formidable work at AOL and Google, which led to him to Samsung and helping founders and startups. David nurtures innovation by meeting entrepreneurs wherever they are, a strategy that’s paying off with 23 (and counting) acquisitions in transformative software, including Smart Things leader in smart home. Exciting days.

Billions of dollars are gushing into ICOs (Initial Coin Offerings). But with every dollar emerges more questions about what purchasers are actually getting. And as reality sets in, the law suits begin. (To wit: Tezos, on this program for after raising their record $232m in July, was just sued by CA Superior Court for violating securities laws & defrauding participants.) Today's guest, Andy Bromberg, hopes to steer this runaway train with CoinList, a new financial services one-stop shop for compliance, anti-money laundering, vetting, investor accreditation & more. A collaboration of AngelList & Protocol Labs, CoinList ran Filecoin's $205m+ ICO and now operates independently to host ICOs at large. Andy and Jason talk about the risks and rewards of this explosive market.

In today's emergency bonus episode of TWiST, the topic is Facebook, Google, and Twitter testifying to Congress about Russia's interference in the U.S. 2016 presidential election. The two-day testimony saw no shortage of shocking revelations, most notably that more than 150 million people saw Russian-bought propaganda or divisive ads on Facebook alone -- which is more people than voted in the election itself. Lon Harris and Austin Smith from Inside.com join Jason to dissect the congressional proceedings, why & how the interference occurred, and future ramifications for the tech giants and society.

In episode 8 of "Angel," Jason sits down with Pejman Nozad, Founding Managing Partner of Pear VC. Pejman came to the U.S. from Iran with nothing, and eventually became one of the most successful angel investors ever, seeding 100+ startups including 6 unicorns. Pejman reveals lessons and insights from his journey, starting from his carpet-selling days and breaking into tech by hosting events at the rug store, to moving into venture capital, starting his own firm and backing massively successful companies. Pejman shares the secrets of his process, including staying disciplined, qualities he looks for in founders (desire to make a difference, combined with a healthy paranoia), conducting due diligence, handling failure, and belief in the good will of Silicon Valley, where you can be a nobody, but still make it.

Cryptocurrency & ICOs are the definitive talk of tech today. Two of the field’s greatest innovators, Brock Pierce (Blockchain Capital & Block.one) & Vinny Lingham (Civic) joined Jason at LAUNCH SCALE 2017 to discuss how we arrived at arguably the most disruptive moment since the internet began, how this new decentralized web & tokens actually work, and where we are headed. Bubbles, altcoins, predictions, bitcoin classic v. cash v. gold, the democratization of capital, the disappearance of VC, why Vinny turned to ICOs to raise $33m, how Brock’s EOS -- at over $600m and rapidly climbing -- is smashing every crypto record to date, and much more.

Pure hustle, tireless fighting, and (sometimes) unadulterated dumb luck are just a few of the reasons why this star investor panel has succeeded when others have failed. Filmed at LAUNCH SCALE 2017, Ben Narasin (NEA), Arlan Hamilton (Backstage Capital) & Zach Coelius (Angel, Syndicate Lead) share what motivates them to make bets, the specific qualities in founders they come back to again and again, lessons from 80+ investments w/50% Series A conversations & 3 unicorns (Ben), from selling candy to building a portfolio of 55+ startups (Arlan), to hitting a $1b exits in just 2 years as an angel (Zach), and market outlook for 2017 and beyond.

E771: Best of Europe #STHLMTech: Future of Games with Unity’s David Helgason & Future of Investing (& pitches) with BackingMinds, Norrsken, Wellstreet

First up at Stockholm Tech Fest 2017 hosted by Tyler Crowley, Jason talks to David Helgason, founder of Unity, the leading creation game engine in the world. Then Jason and Tyler head over to the Future of Investing and talk with BackingMinds, Norrsken & Wellstreet about the fundraising scene in Europe and hear pitches from their favorite startups.

At Stockholm Tech Fest 2017 hosted by Tyler Crowley, Jason sits down with Northvolt CEO Peter Carlsson, formerly of Tesla, who is building Europe's largest lithium-ion battery factory...and a competitor to Tesla. It's a fascinating discussion on the future of energy and how we are moving from coal to solar, the emotional (knee-jerk?) reactions to nuclear, what it takes to innovate in energy and storage, and more. Then Jason talks to iZettle founder Jacob de Geer about his fintech powerhouse, taking on Square, massive growth, the European financial market, whether to IPO, and more. Join us and meet Europe's best.

On Episode 7 of "Angel," Jason talks to Freestyle Capital co-founder Dave Samuel, a former founder (Spinner, Brondell) who brings his entrepreneurial focus to investing. Dave shares what qualities he looks for in startups & products, his love for building teams & companies, the trouble with B2C, raising money in a financial crisis, early internet days including founding & selling the internet's 1st music service to AOL, his innovative smart toilet, why he became an investor, and much more.

E768: Freestyle Capital’s Dave Samuel on the joy & risk of early-stage VC, ideal founder & product qualities, focused investing as a former entrepreneur, creating the world’s smartest toilet, & founding then selling the 1st internet music service to

Today's guest is Freestyle Capital's Dave Samuel, former entrepreneur (Spinner, Brondell) who applies his founders' lens to his investing and talks with Jason about what qualities he looks for in startups, the trouble with B2C, his love for building teams & companies, raising money in a financial crisis, early internet days including founding & selling the internet's 1st music service to AOL, his innovative smart toilet, why he became an investor, and much more.

Pepo & Fab.com founder Jason Goldberg introduces Simple Token for apps to build branded tokens, bridging the gap between consumer & cryptocurrency. Jason G. walks Jason C. through what he calls the most exciting project he's ever been involved with, now being a pioneer in the decentralized web as he was in the early day of e-commerce. With crypto can we finally fulfill the "power to the people" promise of the 1990s internet? The two also talk founder resiliency, soaring highs & devastating lows of entrepreneurship, Nick Denton & defunct Gawker, the dangers of raising too much money, the joys of living in Berlin, and much more.

Back by popular demand is Casey Winters of Greylock (previously Growth Head Pinterest, Grubhub), who gives the LAUNCH Incubator a master class on measuring retention & product-market fit. Do you have product-market fit? How do you know? How do you go about measuring & demonstrating customer retention? All of these are critical building blocks in building & scaling your startup. Join in as Casey walks us through his framework and then workshops the formula with three Incubator companies: Quinn, Funerals360, & LiveHotel. For Casey's slides check out: caseyaccidental.com

Ben Narasin has a unique view on early-stage investing, quite different than Jason's, and today on "Angel," he shares his proven thesis and dives into a track record that speaks for itself, with over half of his seed companies reaching Series A, and 3 unicorns. Ben explains what he looks for in a startup (teams factors heavily, but not exclusively), the absolute critical characteristic a founder must have to succeed, and executing on the strength of your convictions. Plus, portfolio hits, misses, regrets, and more.

At Stockholm Tech Fest 2017: Pirate Bay co-founder Peter Sunde talks with Jason about his P2P revolution for global technology access & impact, lessons he learned from the resulting jail time, our completely broken democracy, the total death of privacy, redefining politics & what to hope for, his continued activism & entrepreneurship, & the frightening specter of President Zuckerberg.

On today's News Roundtable, Molly Wood of Marketplace & Sarah Frier of Bloomberg join Jason to talk the biggest news of the week: Facebook deploying Russian money for ads during the election. The ethics of FB ad targeting, Zuckerberg's intentions, targeting ads by race are all dissected here, including: what will the next FB bombshell? The trio also covers the latest from Apple launch, A.I.'s (questionable) identification of sexual orientation, Instagram v. Snap influencers, the Bodega blow-up -- and more!

Today’s guest features CEO of Front, Mathilde Collin. Originally based in France, she moved her company of 17 people to Silicon Valley and now has thousands of customers for her enterprise product, which is currently used by Inside.com. She went to Y Combinator and has raised $10m+ from some of the most famous investors in the industry, including Dave Morin of Slow Ventures, Alexis Ohanian of Reddit, and Stewart Butterfield of Slack. She is in the studio to talk about her product, Front, which is a collaborative inbox for businesses. Front is like a beautiful LEGO box with every possible feature you need to improve your email workflow. Join us as Jason and Mathilde explore how Front streamlines communication, the competitive landscape with Slack and Zendesk, the impact of machine learning and AI on customer support, work culture in France vs. Silicon Valley, and more. Plus, find out Mathilde’s secret to keeping her team happy.

In today's episode of "Angel," Jason welcomes Syndicate leader Zach Coelius, Triggit founder who, only after 2yrs as an angel, has already enjoyed a $1b exit (Cruise, bought by GM). Zach shares his insights as a founder-turned-investor, including finding deals & deal-breakers, hustling & other techniques to be a better investor, advising your way onto the cap table, what stage of product development is the most exciting, the skinny on AngelList funds, his (tremendous) hits & (very few) misses, and, from personal experience, the great respect & empathy he has for entrepreneurs ("startups are like rocket ships into the walls of your incompetence"). Thank you Audible for sponsoring this podcast.

Today on the program, we are going full science fiction with a company that is at the forefront of the VR revolution, Leap Motion. They are making great progress in this space, recently raising $50m from investors like Bill Warner, Founders Fund, and Andreessen Horowitz. Join us as CEO and co-founder, Michael Buckwald, talks about his mission to remove the barriers between people and technology, his 10-year journey of funding before product-market fit, Leap Motion’s 3D motion-control technology, AR/VR predictions, and more.

E761: Tim O’Reilly & new book “WTF: What’s the Future & Why It’s Up to Us” use tech’s history & lessons to reveal the true nature of our economy, & the difficult choices we need to make now for our future economic survival

Tim O'Reilly is one of the great thought leaders in the history of technology. His much anticipated book (coming 10/10), called "WTF: What’s the Future & Why It’s Up to Us,” breaks down his lessons & observations from a life in tech to draws a roadmap for our future economic survival.

Today, we’re going to get a lot smarter about ICOs and cryptocurrencies with today’s guest, Kathleen Breitman, co-founder of Dynamic Ledger Solutions, which has developed Tezos, a new blockchain-based smart contract platform with an on-chain governance mechanism to coordinate and push upgrades to its network. Tezos is making major waves right now with its recent record-breaking $232m ICO and ongoing fundraising in the Crypto Valley that is Zug, Switzerland. Join us in this special episode as Jason and Kathleen do a deep dive into her new cryptocurrency project, how it’s different from Ethereum, running a fundraiser with a Swiss non-profit foundation, the cypherpunk movement, and the long-term impact of cryptocurrency.

E758: Blockchain CEO Peter Smith on scaling his cryptocurrency wallet to 16m+ users, new Etherium & bitcoin cash integration, ICO predictions, the state of the dark web, regulation speculation, & the power of monetary velocity

If you’ve been paying attention, blockchain, bitcoin, Ethereum, and ICOs are hot topics. After talking about cryptocurrency for a few years on This Week in Startups, it is now having its shining moment, with one bitcoin trading at over $4000. Our guest today, Peter Smith, is the CEO & co-founder of Blockchain, the leading integrated bitcoin platform that makes using different blockchains easy. Join us as Peter distills bitcoin, cryptocurrency, and blockchain fundamentals, regulatory issues and why the U.S. is slower in the cryptospace, effects on the dark web, ICO predictions, and more.

In episode 4 "Angel" podcast Jason talks to angel & syndicate leader Ed Roman. Ed describes his journey from serial entrepreneur in Austin to syndicate angel in Silicon Valley, and shares strategies for optimizing for outsized outcomes, developing the right alchemy gut & market analysis, the biggest mistake investors make, his greatest hits & misses, how to tell when a founder will go 10x, how to know when you're a seasoned investor...and much more. Thanks for Audible for sponsoring this podcast.

From the Whole Earth Review to Wired magazine, to his many books, Kevin Kelly has been at the leading edge in chronicling technology’s impact on society. In this thought-provoking and inspiring interview, Kevin provides an optimistic roadmap for the future, and explains how the upcoming changes in our lives, such as the soft singularity of AI, can be understood as the result of a few long-term, accelerating forces. Join us as Jason and Kevin explore an array of topics, including the psychological impact of internet, China’s exporting culture, the future of jobs, the power of harnessing humans at a new scale, and more.

Today, we are lucky to have a legendary tech pioneer on the program, someone who has been building tech products since tech startups started in the 1970’s and 1980’s, Jim Clark. He founded several notable Silicon Valley technology companies, including Silicon Graphics, Inc., Netscape Communications Corporation, myCFO, and Healtheon. His research work in computer graphics led to the development of systems for the fast rendering of three-dimensional computer images. Today, he announces the launch of his latest business venture, CommandScape, the only integrated building management system for commercial and premium residential properties. Join us as he shares about his journey from the early days at Netscape & Silicon Graphics, leading the computer graphics revolution, and his vision on the future of security, jobs & what makes startups and founders successful.

News Roundtable! Ari Levy (CNBC) & Dave Mathews (NewAer) are in the studio to talk with Jason about the latest tech news. On tap: the CEO rebellion against Trump's advisory councils, Cloudflare and the regulation of content on the internet, Amazon and its third-party sellers, Snap and Blue Apron IPO’s, Uber’s deal with the FCC, and the latest in Bitcoin.

Laura Gomez’s passion for diversity in tech inspired her to start Atipica, as well as her involvement with several non-­profit organizations. Diversity is in our DNA, and Atipica’s mission is to work side-by-side with companies to help them unlock the world’s talent data and achieve their diversity and inclusion hiring goals. Jason and Laura explore the core issue with diversity in tech, being your “whole self,” ageism, and more. Plus, find out how someone like Jason should approach the difficult conversation of diversity and gender in a management role.

In “Angel” episode 3, Jason speaks with Andrea Zurek, Founding Partner of XG Ventures (“ex-Googlers”), and angel investor since 2006. Andrea, whose portfolio includes Facebook, Twitter and Box, shares how she picks companies, her ideal terms and valuations, the trouble with TAM and solo founders, deciding when to follow on, how she applies lessons from building Google to help her founders, best advice for accredited and non-accredited investors, insights on increased opportunity for women in investing, portfolio greatest hits & misses, and much more. Thank you to Audible for sponsoring this podcast.

Filmed live on stage at the 2017 LAUNCH Angel Summit in Napa Valley, Jason interviews Esther Dyson, journalist and technology investor turned wellness enthusiast, who is on a mission to better health by rethinking and recreating the environment in which it can thrive. In this special episode of TWiST, Jason and Esther discuss the progression of angel investing over the years, the complexities around U.S. and Russia relations, predictions of AR, VR, & self-driving cars, real-world issues including diabetes and income volatility, and more.

As an angel investor, as a founder, and as host of 700+ episodes of TWiST, Jason constantly receives questions from founders and superfans about startups. Today, he offers timeless advice — from what an angel investor looks for in a venture outside their market, to raising money against competitors, from calculating and negotiating equity with advisors, to advice for non-accredited angels with low investment budgets. Plus, find out the key lessons Jason has learned about building online communities.

Filmed live at Spotify NYC, Jason interviews Charles Duhigg, Pulitzer Prize winner and author of “The Power of Habit” and “Smarter Faster Better”. Charles was one of a team of New York Times reporters who won the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting for a series of 10 articles about the business practices of Apple and other technology companies. In this special episode, he shares insights into what led him to becoming a self-help guru, the roots of Donald Trump's anti-intellectualism and how to overcome them, the immigration debate, and more. Plus, find out why SNL should have been the biggest failure on earth.

In episode 2 of Jason's new podcast, "Angel," Super Angel & Syndicate Leader Gil Penchina shares secrets from his 20 years investing in 200+ startups, including LinkedIn, PayPal, & Cruise. Gil reveals why he became an angel, which founders & verticals to back (& which to run away from), deal flow strategies, tips for learning the game & making your own rules, how to support founders, & lessons he's learned from his greatest hits ... and failures. Thank you to Audible for sponsoring this podcast.

Filmed live on stage at the 2017 LAUNCH Angel Summit in Napa Valley, Jason interviews industry veteran Alfred Lin. In this intimate fireside chat, Alfred shares insights into the stepping stones of his journey from Venture Frogs, to Zappos, to Sequoia Capital, where he is currently writing checks to some of the most influential startups in Silicon Valley. Alfred spends a large portion of the talk explaining why he focuses on founders who are on a “mission”. He backs his argument with examples of the types of founders and CEOs who make millions, if not billions, of dollars and still choose to continue working because they are on a mission, and that mission goes beyond just making lots and lots of money. Investment strategies from Seed to Series D, the future of venture capital, and the importance of unanimity among partners are all topics covered in detail in this special episode of TWiST.

E749: James Altucher interviews Jason on his new book “Angel”: a guidebook to becoming a world-class investor — or founder — in America’s new system of wealth creation

Filmed live at Squarespace NYC headquarters, James Altucher interviews Jason on his new book “Angel: How to Invest in Technology Startups-Timeless Advice from an Angel Investor Who Turned $100,000 into $100,000,000.” The book can be thought of as a guidebook on how to get into the entrepreneurial space, how to build and grow into it, how to succeed, and, if you are a founder - how to be a founder that VC’s want to invest in. Jason shares lessons learned investing in over 150 companies, how wealth creation changing, and the ways that people can change their financial status. Join us for a candid conversation about being an entrepreneur and learn how Jason has become one of the most successful angel investors in the tech sector.

In under a decade, Founders Fund has become what many people would consider to be in the Top 5 in the venture capital space. Filmed live on stage at the 2017 LAUNCH Angel Summit in Napa Valley, Jason interviews Founders Fund’s top VC Brian Singerman. In this special episode of TWiST, Brian shares highlights from portfolio investments, the criteria for a Founders Fund investment, AI predictions, and more. Plus, find out the 3 parts to Brian’s approach to early stage investments and working with angel investors.

Welcome to the first episode of the "Angel" podcast. In this series, Jason interviews angels about their investment strategies and pulls back the curtain on how early-stage startups get funded. In E1, Cyan Banister, former angel investor (Uber, Thumbtack) now Founders Fund Partner, shares with Jason her portfolio successes & brutal losses, her formula for choosing successful startups & founders, and her journey from angel investor to VC. Thanks to Audible for sponsoring this podcast.

E746: Talla CEO Rob May on using A.I. & machine learning to automate HR & IT, the power of bots, the future of jobs, & the age of verticalized A.I.

Artificial intelligence, machine learning, and bots are starting to get a lot of buzz, and people are saying that advances in AI is moving faster than anticipated. Our guest today, Rob May, is formerly the CEO and co-founder of Backupify, and is now the CEO and co-founder of Talla, which builds intelligent assistants to help knowledge workers better do their jobs. Talla has developed a text-based messaging assistant that uses machine learning and natural language processing to automate human resources & IT tasks. Join us as Rob explains why bots are a better interface, what sets Talla apart from the AI space, and shares his predictions on AI’s impact on jobs.

Food is one of the hardest spaces that any founder can operate in. Food should be innovated upon, and we should be having many more services and products that make our life more delightful. But, we’ve seen more failures than successes here in Silicon Valley. Our guest today, Tovala founder and CEO, believes he will crack the space with his cloud-connected “smart oven” that cooks ready-made meals in under 30 minutes with the scan of a code and the touch of a button. In fact, Tovala is launching today, July 11. Join us as David shares his approach to funding and scaling, his thoughts on the Amazon and Whole Foods acquisition, how he defines success, and more.

Housing has become a hot button issue in the Bay Area, and in fact, the world, with homes being unaffordable and the ability to produce more housing being throttled by a number of interests. Housing in the Bay Area has become more expensive than anywhere else in the country, and the ability to rent an apartment has reached a level that has exceeded NYC. Our guest today, Kim-Mai Cutler, is a Bay Area native, Initialized Capital Operating Partner, TechCrunch contributor, and has become an authority on housing in the Bay Area. Join us as she explains the affordable housing crisis, the structural issue of power, the causes and consequences of transit fragmentation, gentrification and income inequality, and more.

News Roundtable! Robert Scoble of Transformation Group.io & Iain Thomson of The Register UK are in the studio to talk with Jason about the latest tech news. On tap: the latest in Apple AR, iPhone’s 10th anniversary and what drove the smartphone revolution, how data collection is destroying privacy, Amazon’s acquisition of Whole Foods and what this means for Blue Apron and other meal delivery services, Google’s decision to stop scanning Gmail for ad purposes/data tracking, Binary Capital and the Justin Caldbeck scandal, Trump’s incoherent tweets, and a candid discussion about Uber’s future.

Something has happened in the past decade, which is very unique. The world has gotten smaller, and entrepreneurship has spread across globe. When we look at the breakout successes in the tech space, it was rare to see huge breakout success anywhere outside of Silicon Valley, Seattle, and New York. A couple of years ago, we started to see in Europe, specifically in Stockholm, a number of companies starting to become worth wildly over a billion dollars, such as Spotify, King, and Soundcloud. Today, Tyler Crowley introduces 4 innovative Swedish startups. The first co-founder is Carl Waldekranz and his startup Tictail, which is an online marketplace that brings together the world’s best designers in fashion, home decor, and arts. Next is co-founder Johan Attby of FishBrain, which is an online platform that collects data to create a tailored experience in sport fishing. Then founder Fredrika Gullfot pitches Simris, which takes a sustainable approach to agribusiness through harvesting algae. The final founder is Mikael Lenart and his startup Venue, which is taking an innovative approach to live music by connecting artists with existing fans to create shows. Join us and learn about how and why Stockholm is the leading startup hub in Sweden.

Kevin Rose is an angel investor, venture capitalist, podcaster, and serial entrepreneur best known for building companies like Digg, Revision3, and Milk. In this Part 2 episode, Jason and Kevin continue their discussion of what they look for in a startup founder and lessons learned in early stage investing. Then, they explore their favorite apps, issues around the cryptocurrency and housing markets, and theories around the political side of Zuckerberg.

This Week in Startups is a show about entrepreneurship, investing, technology, and media. Our guest today is able to speak to all of those areas. Kevin Rose is an angel investor, venture capitalist, podcaster, and serial entrepreneur best known for building companies like Digg, Revision3, and Milk. He recently moved from NY to join True Ventures as a venture partner. Join us as Kevin and Jason discuss what makes a good startup and a good product, how to source deals, his Oak app and the benefit of mediation for entrepreneurs, and more.

E739: “Gut Feel” in angel investing: Wharton Prof of Entrepreneurship Laura Huang on how early investors make decisions, quantifying the unquantifiable, questioning meritocracy, the role of gender & other biases (& how to hack them)

Laura Huang is a Professor of Management and Entrepreneurship at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. Laura’s research examines how an investor’s gut feel plays a role in innovation and entrepreneurial decision making. She explores how perceptions and cues influence an individual’s ability to make important, high-stakes decisions, how attractiveness and gender affect pitch success, and if investors are behaving differently in those circumstances because of the valid pressure on the investment community to see more diversity.

E738: Treehouse online coding school & founder Ryan Carson get aspiring programmers & developers “zero to job-ready” & use the power of apprenticeships to close the tech skills gap for underrepresented groups

Founder & CEO Ryan Carson was a guest on TWiST Episode 198, and he returns today to talk about Treehouse, his online trade school for adults that does one thing really well: taking anybody who has never coded from zero to job-ready. Ryan figured out how to reduce the cost of a computer science degree ($58k) down to 2% of that, with complete geographic and time shifting freedom. Join us as he and Jason debate the value of apprenticeships and explore the way traditional universities are run.

Brit + Co is a media company that inspires, educates, and entertains real women with a creative spirit through content, online classes, and creative products. Brit + Co connects a community of over 125m online and across platforms every month, bringing a creative lens to the women’s lifestyle space. The company's audience consists primarily of millennial women. Today, we are excited to have the founder and CEO as our guest, Brit Morin. An ex-Googler and Apple alum, Morin brought her innovative spirit from Silicon Valley to the digital media world. Brit + Co has had a strong year of growth, partnering with Target and raising $15m in Series C funding led by Verizon Ventures. Join us as Brit shares her inspiring story of turning a passion into a thriving business, Brit + Co’s partnership with Target, Generation Z and her optimism for the future, and much more.

E736: Robinhood uses free stock trading to open access to the entire American financial system; co-founder Vlad Tenev talks mission, building a billion dollar startup & the business of millennial money management

We are pleased to have one of Jason’s investments as our guest today, Robinhood co-founder Vlad Tenev. Tenev went to Stanford in 2004 looking to become an academic, first studying physics and later math. During this time, he met and became good friends with his co-founder Baiju Bhatt. Together, they started a bootstrapped and profitable software company called Chronos Research, which was formed to respond to the increased influence of algorithmic trading in the financial industry. This inspired them to build something bigger than just software that helps hedge funds and banks optimize their trading. Robinhood is a no-fee stock trading app with a mission to open up access to the American financial system. So, whereas other discount brokerages charge $7-$10 for every trade and have account minimums of $500-$2,000, with Robinhood, there are no minimums and no trading commissions, thus tapping into an underserved part of the market. Join us to learn how Robinhood went from a clever idea to a billion dollar valuation.

Most days at startups, you have more problems than you have solutions, and more bad days than good days. As an angel investor, as a founder, and as host of 700+ episodes of TWiST, Jason constantly receives questions from founders and superfans about startups. Today, he offers timeless advice — from why most startups fail after product market fit has been achieved, to his thoughts on the state of VC in consumer apps, from patent protection, to fundamental ways to transition into a long-term thinking company. Plus, find out what lesson Jason learned the hard way.

LAUNCH Festival 2017 kicked off with a unique twist. Live equity crowdfunding was offered for a handful of companies that were simultaneously listed on the SeedInvest platform, which connects venture capital, angel investors and accredited investors. These companies each delivered a 3 minute explanatory pitch to a host of judges.Today, Jason and Clipisode CEO Brian Alvey share 6 companies that pitched at this year’s Festival. The first company is Swiftmile, a solar-powered electric bike sharing system for corporate commuters. Next is Lendsnap, which powers mortgage lending with unparalleled financial data access for lenders and their borrowers. Then Kylie.ai pitches autonomous A.I. that clones personalities to automate communication. Next is LEAF, which is smartphone “plug and plant” app to help you grow marijuana (and more). Then NowRX pitches their mobile app that offers same day free delivery for prescriptions. The final company is Laugh.ly, which is a streaming radio app dedicated to comedy.

News Roundtable! Molly Wood of Marketplace and Ben Parr of Octane AI are in the studio to talk with Jason about the latest tech news. On tap: the relevance of net neutrality for the startup economy, what lies ahead for Google Lens, Uber Freight connecting truck drivers with shipments, Biz Stone's return to Twitter, Elon Musk's new underground tunnel project, drone skydiving, and more.

Today’s TWiST introduces a new format called “The Syndicate,” where 7 top startups across 7 verticals pitch to 20 world-class investors in Silicon Valley every 6 weeks. These top startups are selected based on feedback of the angel investors: who has the most traction, the most viable product, who could be the most meaningful in the future. Each company presents for 3 minutes, followed by 6 minutes of feedback. Join us to learn how effectively to present your company and answer hard questions. And if you’re thinking about becoming an investor, this is a great primer at how to look at a company and the right questions to ask.
Featured startups:
- Cafe X: The world's first robot barista
- Connected Signals: Bridges the gap between autonomous vehicles and crucial capabilities
- Blokable: Ship homes that are modular, stackable, and smart
- Tueo Health: Transforms the way we care for asthma
- Interviewed: Combines structured job assessments and employee testing to identify the strongest job candidates accurately and easily
- PowerScout: AI Enabled Marketplace for Smart Home Improvement
- Underground Cellar: Online wine deals w/o bastardizing brands

It’s Part 2 of Inside LAUNCH Incubator. In this hour, we will meet 4 more innovative startups that have gone through the Incubator, learn about their products, give and receive candid feedback about the highly competitive Incubator, key takeaways, struggles, the funding process, and more. The first founder is David Bennahum and his startup Ready, which is a cross-platform programming environment for personal robotics that makes robotics accessible to all of us. Next is founder Jennifer Simchowitz of Keepster, which is a toolkit to curate your text messages and keep what matters most by turning them into books and cards. Then co-founder Jesse Lakes pitches Genius Link, which solves the geo-fragmentation challenge in a world of global e-commerce. The final founder is Dan Grueter and his startup Poppins, which is an invitation-based childcare service that uses a care algorithm to source the best caretaker in the Poppins network based on a family’s specific needs.

Today Jason and Brian Alvey talk with LAUNCH Incubator founders about their products, give and receive candid feedback about the highly competitive Incubator, key takeaways, struggles, the funding process, and more. The first founder is Tyson Woeste and his startup Transported, which offers virtual reality tours for real estate. One of the great things about VR is that it’s not tethered to reality, so instead of wandering through a home, you can jump in anywhere — you can zoom in on the sink, you can see if the floor is actually as good as it looks, you can look at the ceiling, etc. There is a level of detail that you wouldn’t get from photos. Next is co-founder Allen Chen & FitBod, which offers personalized strength-training powered by machine learning. Everyone thinks that apps are over, and that the fitness space is too crowded, yet FitBod found a way to come out on top.

E729: Founder Richard Craib shares his A.I. hedge fund Numerai, built with an anonymous network of 15,000 (& counting) data scientists, encryption, the blockchain, his own currency to reward collaboration, and a mission to manage the world’s money

There’s a new way to make stock market predictions. Numerai, a hedge fund based in San Francisco, has gained a following as the first hedge fund that gives stock market data to machine learning data scientists using structure-preserving encryption to prevent them from mimicking the fund’s trades themselves. Several thousand anonymous data scientists compete to create the best trading algorithms—and win bitcoin for their efforts. At the same time, the company carefully organizes this encrypted data in a way that allows the data scientists to build models that are potentially able to make better trades. Founder Richard Craib believes that Numerai can become even more successful if it can align the incentives of everyone involved. His hope is that his new kind of currency, Numeraire, will turn online competition into a collaboration—and turn Wall Street on its head in the process.

Jason’s passion is to create things in the world that make a difference, and that’s really at core of what entrepreneurs are. They are the people who decide that they’re not just going to have an idea, but that they will take that idea and have it manifest itself in a product, service or company. Jason has the unique perspective of being on both sides of the table - as an entrepreneur and now as an angel investor for the last 6 years in 150+ companies, and as such, he has started to think about what it means to invest in a company. Join us as he shares insights into what angel investors should do and how they should approach the work. Plus, he shares excerpts from his upcoming book, “Angel,” and answers questions from the audience about pitch meetings, how to behave in them, how to craft an email to an investor, and much more.

Filmed at LAUNCH Festival 2017, Jason sits down with Alex Garden of Zume Pizza, Henry Hu of Cafe X, and Deepak Sekar of Chowbotics to have a candid discussion about the future of robotics in the food industry—the inspiration for their companies, successes, regulation challenges, and the great debate around automation of labor. And then Amanda Richardson of HotelTonight shares her experiences of being a small company in a crowded industry, getting attacked by one of their largest competitors, and how her team went from 2-3 bookings a day to now doing tens of thousands of room nights a day, with 20m downloads, in 37 different countries. She challenges us to focus on the “superpower” of being a small company, to know your users, and to think about your differentiation in the industry.

Just because you write the check doesn’t mean that you’re the important person in the equation. In fact, the check is not important in the equation either. It’s the people who get up everyday and do the hard work, and that kind of humility, work ethic, and dedication is what set Hunter Walk of Homebrew, Megan Quinn of Spark Capital, and Jalak Jobanputra of FuturePerfect VC apart. Filmed at LAUNCH Festival 2017, Jason sits down with this all-star panel of builders-turned-investors to discuss lessons learned, equity crowdfunding, VR predictions, and much more. And then Rishi Garg of Mayfield helps us understand the M&A process, how to be proactive, and how to get the right help. Previously, Rishi ran corporate development and strategy teams at 3 public companies, most recently at Twitter, where he was VP of Corporate Development, as well as at Square and MTV Networks. Along the way, he also started and sold a venture-backed company and worked for a couple other venture firms, so M&A is a topic that he cares deeply about, and has seen from many angles.

500 Startups is a global venture capital seed fund with a network of startup programs headquartered in Silicon Valley, with investments in more than 1,800 technology startups all over the world since its inception in 2010. Jason sits down with Founding Partner Dave McClure to talk about early mistakes, lessons and insights learned, his investment approach, and advice to founders in 2017. Then, Sarah Tavel of Greylock Partners reflects on her early days at Pinterest as she watched the company grow from 30,000 registered users to 100m monthly active users, and distills 10 lessons from her experience there.

There are two things that startups need: money and growth. Money is the fuel, and growth happens typically through investments, and through making better products and technique. Filmed at LAUNCH Festival 2017, Jason interviews an all-star panel of investor thought leaders. Gil Penchina is a super angel of super angels that has dominated the syndicate space. Cyan Banister started as an angel investor and has moved upstream to be a venture capitalist at Founders Fund. SeedInvest CEO and co-founder Ryan Feit is making a huge bet on the equity crowdfunding revolution.

Filmed at LAUNCH Festival 2017, Jason sits down with Stripe CEO Patrick Collison to explore his journey to solving one of the toughest barriers to a global e-commerce economy: payments. About a decade ago, companies were mostly working with legacy players like banks, gateways and processors, and they were essentially looking to buy a technology service from them. These financial institutions were huge, but focused on particular markets, which provided an opportunity for Stripe. Today, Stripe works with companies in 124 countries and handles billions of dollars of aggregate revenue every year. Join us as Patrick shares an inspiring story of his early days at Y Combinator, mistakes and triumphs, opening the Atlas program to US-based startups, and his views on public/private markets.

Filmed at Cisco Spark Haus, SXSW 2017, Jason sits down with Capital Factory Mentor founder of Josh Baer, who helps people quit their jobs and become entrepreneurs. Josh is a tireless supporter of startups, but more specifically, has made Austin a center of gravity for entrepreneurs. Capital Factory Mentor boasts a mentor network of 100+ experts from diverse backgrounds and uses it to grow startups. Josh discusses his investment successes, failures & greatest misses, the thriving entrepreneurial scene in Austin and growing venture community, and why bridge loans are usually a bad deal for both entrepreneurs and VCs. He then takes questions from the audience about crowd-funding, why it’s only easier to be a founder in today’s times, and the importance of setting the stage for international entrepreneurs.

This week’s LAUNCH Incubator features Pear.vc partner Mar Hershenson as she gives an instructive talk about turning seed companies into series A companies. There is a lot of confusion among seed founders as to the right approach. Depending on what vertical you’re in, whether it’s e-commerce, consumer, SaaS, or marketplace, there is different knowledge that people have as to what you need to hit to be a series A company. She explains the importance of planning, executing and iterating an Ops plan, which metrics are predictors of success, and why it’s effective to communicate with data. Mar wraps up her talk by answering questions from the class about lessons learned from mistakes she has made as an angel investor, social distribution, and women in entrepreneurship.

E718: NetSuite CEO Zach Nelson on building to $1b run rate, early days at Oracle, McAfee & Sun, pioneering enterprise, prioritizing sales, going public, the CEO’s toughest job & the future of employment

Zach Nelson is one of Silicon Valley's most experienced business leaders. After roles at Oracle, Sun, and McAfee, he became the CEO of cloud provider NetSuite in 2002. NetSuite started with less than $1m in revenue and Zach ran it up to a billion dollar run rate, with a recent acquisition by Oracle for $9.3b. Join us for an insightful interview with Zach as he shares unique CEO insights around the founding story of NetSuite, how he transformed the enterprise resource planning (ERP) space, keeping a team motivated, what makes a great product launch, and more.

News Roundtable! Rolfe Winkler of the Wall Street Journal and Tess Townsend of Recode are in the studio to talk with Jason about the latest tech news. On tap: Google Allo and the future of personal assistants, a bot that turns your texts into faxes to elected officials, the pros and the cons of Trump's Twitter use and the future of Twitter, Parker Conrad’s new startup Rippling, and more.

Intercom co-founder Des Traynor returns to the LAUNCH Incubator with another powerhouse talk. There are 3 ingredients to a company: people, product and profit. Today, Des focuses on people and product by extracting key principles from his experience at Intercom. He explains the importance of alignment and how it touches every aspect of running a company – from how a company behaves, to the hiring process, to how you speak to customers. Then, he shares 6 principles on building a product first company. Des wraps up his talk by answering questions from the class about lessons learned from Intercom’s early days, net negative churn, and ways to avoid the massive churn problem.

Aside from having an idea and a product, there are two things that every startup needs: money and growth. We are starting to open up the aperture of who can invest in a company. There is a global competition for ideas that requires entrepreneurs, and those entrepreneurs require capital to grow their companies. In today’s episode, Jason talks to SeedInvest CEO and co-founder Ryan Feit about his equity crowdfunding platform and the revolution that’s happening in that landscape. Also joining us today is Wolf3D CEO Timmu Tõke, a 3D scanning startup that launched a business initiative on SeedInvest. Insights are shared from Timmu’s entrepreneurial perspective on why he chose equity crowdfunding for his business, and from Ryan’s investment perspective on the process of accepting a company like Wolf3D. Jason explores questions about accredited vs. non-accredited investors, doubling down on startups, risks and market potential, and much more.

E713: All #AskJason, PT2: How to break into VC, building social networks, disrupting housing & transportation, taking risks, & the meaning of success

In this Part 2 episode, Jason continues to answer questions from founders and superfans -- from convincing an angel investor that being a solo founder is good to starting a social network, from advice around risk-taking to the future of transportation and housing. Plus, find out what he is passionate about outside of angel investing and how he defines success.

As an angel investor, as a founder, and as host of 700+ episodes of TWiST, Jason constantly receives questions from founders and superfans. Today, he answers 15 -- from how to passively support viable startups if you have a day job to best fundraising advice, from how much confidentiality founders should expect, to tips for female entrepreneurs to successfully navigate the tricky waters of owning and running a company in a male-dominated landscape. Plus, find out some of Jason’s investment strategies to choosing winners to invest in. This is only the first of two parts, so stay tuned for much more.

Linden Tibbets is the co-founder & CEO of IFTTT, one of the leading IoT solution platforms that automates simple tasks and controls a variety of devices. Linden comes from the world of programming, and worked as an engineer connecting API’s together at the world renowned design firm, IDEO. He had the original insight of getting services like Twitter, DropBox, and Instagram working together, and the vision of a platform that is the standard for information access. The simplest way to describe IFTTT is as a personal automation platform. Users create simple "Applets" that can execute simple "If This Then That" statements. Currently, IFTTT has about 10 million users, 50m+ applets, and 400 partners. From FitBit to Philips Hue, from finding your phone with Alexa to turning on your TV, IFTTT is paving the way to an automated lifestyle that can save you time and make the technology you use every day a seamless part of your life.

One of the biggest problems that we face in the world today, specifically here in the U.S. and in Europe, is the electrical grid. The energy market is going through a rapid transition - increased penetration of renewable energy. The energy market is evolving into a more sustainable market, but with that comes challenges for the electricity grid. Essentially, because renewable energy is intermittent in nature, there are sometimes misforecasts that create imbalances on the grid. REstore wants to help solve that problem through technology that can analyze, predict and adjust power-using devices to balance out those minute-by-minute or hour-by-hour fluctuations.
Then, Greylock Partner Josh Elman shares his insights around virality. Every entrepreneur wants their startup’s product to go viral, but many fail to understand how virality actually works. All virality has one common element: inception and motivation. Join us as Josh explores some of the ways that products can go viral.

E708: Filmed at Upfront Summit 2017! Vinod Khosla on his journey from entrepreneur to VC, early days at Sun Microsystems, changing the trajectory of the internet, advice to founders & investors, future of cleantech, AI & job growth

Filmed at the Upfront Summit 2017, Jason sits down with legendary entrepreneur-turned-investor, Vinod Khosla. In 1980, Vinod co-founded Daisy Systems, the first significant computer-aided design system for electrical engineers. In 1982, he made his early fortune as one of the co-founders of Sun Microsystems, and in 1987, he switched gears to join the venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, where he gained huge recognition and appreciation as a venture capitalist. He is also widely known for launching Juniper Networks, a company which is believed to be the next Cisco. Currently, he is the founder of Khosla Ventures, a firm focused on assisting entrepreneurs to build impactful new energy and technology companies. Join us as Vinod Khosla shares his inspiring story of mistakes, lessons learned, and advice for entrepreneurs building technology-based businesses.

Jason “jams out” a number of marketing and growth tips with founders in this special “Jam Session” episode of This Week in Startups. Casey Winters is a growth advisor and was previously Growth Product Lead at Pinterest and GrubHub. He explains how to use landing pages to capture all of the free search traffic that you may be missing out on. Sue Kwon, Head of Communications at Honor, draws parallels from her experience of working in a tv newsroom to what founders go through having to quickly tell their story with little money and time. Then, David McIntosh, CEO and co-founder at Tenor, talks about growth, specifically about making decisions that compound exponentially instead of slow linear growth.

In this Part 2 episode, Jason and Sam continue their exploration of the Trump Phenomenon, social media and fake news, and the benefits and threats of A.I. The thematic question to ask ourselves is: what sort of society do we want to live in? As technology becomes more powerful, and as more jobs become obviated by intelligent machines, Sam highlights that we need to figure out how to redistribute wealth to the better part of humanity. He reminds us though, that it’s not all depressing, and that with the right approach, we are living in the first moment of human history where we can plausibly imagine virtually everything changing.

Today’s guest is Sam Harris, philosopher, neuroscientist and best-selling author of books including “Waking Up,” “The End of Faith,” “Letter to a Christian Nation,” and “The Moral Landscape.” Jason and Sam explore a wide range of topics, including the ethics of robots, the value of meditation, Trump’s lies, and his most recent obsession AI, which stemmed from an initial conversation with Elon Musk. Sam argues that the threat of uncontrolled AI is one of the most pressing issues of our time and poses the question: Can we build AI without losing control over it? The two then discuss why meditation is so important for entrepreneurs and business people. Sam has built his brand and fan base around radical honesty and authenticity, so the conversation naturally segues to Trump and his lies. This is only the first of two parts, so stay tuned for much more.

E704: Napster co-founder Jordan Ritter & his new Atlas Informatics are redefining search to solve digital chaos in the age of contextual intelligence; the future of cybersecurity, privacy, AI/machine learning, & political turbulence

Jordan Ritter is an accomplished serial entrepreneur perhaps best known for co-founding Napster, the controversial file-sharing company that fundamentally changed the music industry. He shares about the inspiration behind the music-streaming site, the key role he played in helping it scale, the pivotal moment that lingers in his memory during the craze, and the most important lesson he learned there. Currently, he is the CEO of Atlas Informatics, a startup in Seattle with an audacious goal to redefine search as we know it. Atlas Recall, the company's first product, gives you a searchable photographic memory that helps you find everything you have seen across all of your devices, apps and cloud services, and the context surrounding them: when you looked at them, what order you did so in, what other windows and apps you had open at the same time, where you were when you accessed it, and sharing history. Join us as Jason and Jordan discuss this meaningful paradigm shift towards real contextual awareness and machine learning.

News Roundtable! Katie Benner of The New York Times and Amir Efrati of The Information are in the studio to talk with Jason about the latest tech news. On tap: SnapChat cleaning up Discover and readying for IPO, Tesla cleared in accident investigation and a new era of safety in cars, the future of net neutrality under President Trump, and more.

Filmed at CES 2017, the theme of today’s show is the future of transportation. Jason and tech inventor Dave Mathews sit down at the Ring booth to talk about new automotive trends & innovations from Mercedes and Audi, the big story of Amazon Alexa, and predictions in tech for 2017. Next, ChargePoint President & CEO Pasquale Romano joins the show to talk about his mission to get everyone behind the wheel of an electric vehicle, and provide them a place to charge wherever they go. Then, CEO Gregory Ducongé reveals how VULOG Carsharing is leading a new generation of carsharing technologies. This is only the first of two parts, so stay tuned for much more.

Filmed at CES 2017, Jason sits down with James Siminoff, a dogged entrepreneur driven by the idea of winning no matter how tough the challenge. James was one of three people inside a garage workshop, tinkering away on projects. Answering the doorbell from the garage was a pain, and after realizing that the market did not offer a solution to this problem, James took on building a front door monitoring system himself. Today, this game-changing doorbell is called Ring, and the company’s mission is to reduce crime in neighborhoods. Join us as Jason and Jamie explore the breakthrough features of the product, lessons learned in the rollercoaster life of a tech entrepreneur, and the future of home automation in the playing field.

E699: Mighty Networks founder & CEO Gina Bianchini builds smarter social networks for business and lasting online communities, using lessons from Ning & the best tools for efficient entrepreneurship

Gina Bianchini is an expert in community building. Many know her as the co-founder and former CEO of Ning, an online platform for people and organizations to create custom social networks. Her latest venture is with a social software startup called Mighty Networks, which reinvents groups online by helping companies and organizations power discussions among professionals. Gina fundamentally believes in the power of new connections and that the answer to today’s flood of social networks is a morphing and progression of these networks. Mighty Networks addresses the need to connect relevant members, break the ice, and drive people to meet up and to learn from each other.

E698: Best of SCALE! SaaStr Founder Jason Lemkin on getting from $1m to $10m in ARR; Calm Founder Alex Tew demos how to land 100,000 users before you launch

Today’s TWiST features the two highest-rated speakers at 2016 LAUNCH SCALE, sharing their best strategies for building startups. First, Jason Lemkin, Founder of SaaStr, shares tips and common mistakes to getting from $1m to $10m in ARR. Then, Alex Tew, shares some of his learnings from The Million Dollar Homepage and Calm.com, and dives into the key ingredients to creatively acquiring 100,000 users before you launch.

Home security systems haven't meaningfully evolved in decades. Current monitoring systems can have false alarm rates ranging between 95%-99%, giving homeowners no more of a sense of security than having no system at all. Sunflower Labs CEO & co-founder Alex Pachikov is modernizing the home security market with the introduction of the Sunflower Home Awareness System, which combines terrestrial feedback and aerial observations to create an entirely new awareness-based approach. Backed by $2.1M in funding from General Catalyst and others, Sunflower Labs is disrupting the home security market at this exciting intersection of new technology and the smart home.
Then, Homebrew General Partner Satya Patel shares a framework for understanding how to get from seed stage to series A. Why is this relevant today? About 20% of companies that have raised seeds in the past few years are now going to be able to raise series A’s, but that number is decreasing, so the battle for the A dollar is becoming more brutal. In Homebrew’s first round of raising funds, they had a 92% success rate of helping companies raise A rounds vs. seed rounds that they lead. Join us and learn tips on how to get money in your bank.

We have a primal desire to fill our brains with information, as animals forage for food. But with the constant and exponential barrage of technology, we are at a near-constant state of interruptions and distractions. "Multi-tasking" is a myth, it's brain switching .... and we can't keep up. And everything suffers as result: our sleep, relationships, mood, attention -- and performance. How can we break out of the cycle and rescue our brains from high-tech addiction? And how about companies like Facebook -- don't they have a responsibility to design healthier products? Adam Gazzaley, author of "The Distracted Mind: Ancient Brains in a High-Tech World," is with Jason today, and has answers. We also learn more about Dr. Gazzaley's fascinating neuroscience experiments and research, and where we're headed with the brain and the taking back of control of our attention -- and futures.

News Roundtable! Dave Mathews (NewAer) and Iain Thomson (The Register) join Jason to tackle 2016's biggest stories and 2017's best bets. The trio starts by dissecting Apple and its disastrous decisions, stepping into high gear with the rise of the Drones, the latest major hack(s) in an especially hackalicious year (thanks Yahoo), not to mention Russia and possibly Putin himself hacking into the U.S. election, the steps up and back for self-driving autos (with sushi bets, naturally), Trump's surreal summit with tech illuminati, Facebook fake news destroying the world, and more.

E694: Leade.rs Founder Loic Le Meur on building Europe’s tech with LeWeb, investing in SV powerhouses LinkedIn & Evernote, and now creating a marketplace for the world’s greatest speakers

Loic Le Meur is a serial entrepreneur based in San Francisco. He co-founded one of the largest European tech events, LeWeb. Loic is an active business angel and was an early investor in LinkedIn, Evernote and Lending Club, among many others. In this episode, he shares insights around his new startup, Leade.rs, a speakers-events marketplace that enables you to discover the top people doing amazing things in their field right now—the Nobel Prize, the Forbes top 30 under 30,, the Young Global Leaders, LinkedIn Influencers, and TED speakers. Currently, the process to book keynote speakers for events is broken. Most events aim to maximize revenue, but compromise engaging topics. Leade.rs wants to answer questions such as, “Who makes VR?” “Who are best people in VR in Asia?” “In Latin America?”, and connect those speakers with event planners. Join us as Loic shares his vision to create transparent optionality in discovering speakers and the sustainable revenue experiment paired with it.

Filmed at 2016 LAUNCH SCALE, Tom Patterson sits down with Jason and shares his wisdom around his massively successful high-end men's underwear brand, and how he went from being a medical device salesman to leading Tommy John to exceed $100M in sales by 2018. Then, Jason interviews a panel of investor thought leaders. Paul Judge (Luma), Christine Tsai (500 Startups), Ryan Feit (SeedInvest) convene to discuss the future of fundraising, what this means in relation to the election, and the differences between accredited and non-accredited investors.

Filmed at 2016 LAUNCH SCALE, David Sacks of Zenefits and Cyan Banister of Founders Fund sit down with Jason to hash out the trials and successes in scaling culture. David Sacks talks openly about the transformation of culture at Zenefits--how he fixed the company's problems and helped to rapidly scale the business. Then, Cyan Banister shares tips on how to create and preserve company culture as you scale. She then takes questions from the audience about how to handle subcultures and 1099 employees, stay present from a distance, and maintain culture when a company is growing rapidly.

E691: LAUNCH SCALE: Yossi Vardi shares insights from 85 investments & 26 exits: execution over ideas, mastering persistence, and winning the game that is based on failure

With over 85 investments and 26 high-profile exits under his belt, technology- and investment guru Yossi Vardi sits down with Jason and imparts his advice for hopeful startups. Yossi then takes questions from the audience about raising money or staying bootstrapped, defining the grey line between chasing a bad idea and staying persistent through tough times, and how to get over the hump of trying to convince investors of a good idea. Join us in a candid conversation with Yossi as he reveals the secrets of his success.

E690: Redfin CEO Glenn Kelman on reinventing & revitalizing real estate for the consumer; Pear Founding Partner Pejman Nozad on his journey to America, from selling carpets to building a $20b portfolio

Filmed at 2016 LAUNCH SCALE, Glenn Kelman of Redfin and Pejman Nozad of Pear.vc sit down with Jason and share how their stories of staying obsessively focused and persistent led them to building great companies. Glenn Kelman demonstrates how Redfin is reinventing real estate in the consumer’s favor, with the goal of restoring honor to the otherwise underappreciated profession. Then, Pejman Nozad takes us on his 20-year journey that started when he got a job at a car wash in San Jose while living in an attic above a yogurt shop, to then selling rugs, closing sales — $8 million worth of rugs in his best year — and starting a tech venture fund.

New York is an important ecosystem that combines the art scene, media companies, Wall Street, the advertising industry, and news organizations. What it didn’t have in the early days was any kind of infrastructure--angel investors, incubators--which meant that if you were an entrepreneur, you were on your own. Now, there is a lot more infrastructure, including startup incubators. Joining Jason today are the two leaders of R/GA Ventures Incubator, Richard Ting and Nick Coronges. R/GA supports companies that are looking to build their brand, while partnering them with their client base of major players, including Nike, Verizon Wireless, Johnson & Johnson, Samsung and Google. Join us as Nick and Richard reveal what startups need the most help with, which young companies have the most demonstrable success, and how R/GA is playing an integral role in supporting the community and helping entrepreneurs.

E-commerce is growing, and direct-to-consumer e-commerce is becoming a trend. Andy Katz-Mayfield is the co-founder and co-CEO of the men's razor subscription company Harry's, along with Jeff Raider, one of the co-founders of Warby-Parker. The shaving startup rethinks how grooming products could be sold by focusing on higher-quality razors at lower prices than its much larger competitors. The science of customer acquisition has changed with the introduction of Facebook, custom audiences and re-targeting. Andy explains that being vertically integrated has allowed them to move quickly and commit to their millions of customers. Teaming up with Target, taking on established giant Gillette, thoughts on Dollar Shave Club’s acquisition by Unilever — all this and much more.

E686: Douglas Rushkoff on “Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus: How Growth Became the Enemy of Prosperity,” exposing the downside of the digital revolution, income inequality & growth agendas of large companies

Media theorist and author Douglas Rushkoff joins Jason to discuss the current economic environment. The two talk about Douglas’ latest thought-provoking book, “Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus: How Growth Became the Enemy of Prosperity," the digital economy, the growth trap, and solutions to create sustainable marketplaces for the future. Douglas presents the problem that digital companies extract value without distributing wealth. They're taking money and value away from us and storing it in share price. He argues that you should make everyone in your ecosystem wealthy--your customers/vendors/suppliers--then you can circulate money, rather than just extract it.

When John Shahidi, co-founder and CEO of Shots Studios, was building an app that finds the next big digital stars, he looked to the behaviors of his users—10 million users who were mostly 15 years old. What he found out was, less than 9% of shots users watch TV, but over 60% of them would watch a video on YouTube. Shots Studios started as a “teen selfie app” and recently turned its focus to online comedy videos, with Floyd Mayweather as their first investor and Justin Bieber as a partner. Content creation has become a growing business, and Shots Studios has taken stars who built their fame in Instagrams, Vine and Snapchat, and helped them shoot high-production four-minute YouTube videos. What people want more than anything else is discoverability—more than a connection with celebrities or content with celebrities. John looked at what and why people were watching particular content, and enhanced that experience. He reveals how he did this, stays relevant and caters towards a younger audience, and more.

Jason “jams out” a number of marketing and growth tips with founders in this special “Jam Session” episode of This Week in Startups. Scott Abel, CEO of The Content Wrangler, shares 10 lessons to creating your own influencer campaign. Arjun Moorthy is currently the CEO of CivikOwl, and previously spent 5 years at HubSpot as the VP of Business Development and then as the Head of Channel Program. He shares lessons learned from HubSpot, and talks about how to widen your sales by paying resellers to become a channel for your product. Then, founder of Credo, John Doherty, explains why startup founders should do less content, but do it much better.

A recurring theme in our society and in the technology industry is suicide, depression, people in crisis. Nancy Lublin is a social entrepreneur, author and philanthropist that previously founded Dress for Success, the organization that helps women transition from welfare to work, and DoSomething.org, a non-profit organization with the goal of motivating young people to take action around social changes through national campaigns and grants for projects that make an impact. Her latest venture, Crisis Text Line, is the nation’s first free, 24/7 text line for people in emotional crisis. Teenagers love to text, and Crisis Text Line turns this into a way to help them through their hardest times: family issues, stress or suicidal thoughts. Trained counselors text back and forth with advice and resources—and, in the process, collect anonymous data that ultimately helps save lives. As a social entrepreneur, Nancy has observed people debating this issue, but not collaborating to solve the problem, and her vision is to inspire young people to take action to make an impact.

David Helgason is an entrepreneur and co-founder of Unity 3D, a platform creating 2D and 3D games. In 2003, he had the crazy idea of revolutionizing the gaming industry and his pioneering days started in a garage during a time when VR and AR were still only speculative. In the last 10 years on this adventure, the future caught up with David, and things like AR, Pokemon Go, and other video games needed to create a 3D world. Unity 3D is like a stage where you put digital assets all together, make it interactive, compile it with one button, and then deploy it to all platforms. Unity 3D has received funding from the likes of Sequoia Capital, WestSummit Capital, and iGlobe Partners. David shares his challenges as well as his predictions for VR/AR and the future of mobile games.

Shivani Siroya is the CEO and founder of Tala, a company is tackling a massive problem: there are 3 billion people around the world that are currently underserved from financial services—they don’t have bank accounts, access to formal credit options, traditional loan products, small business loans, or insurance products. Tala makes micro-loans in Kenya, Tanzania and the Philippines by using a person’s smartphone, transactions, and app usage to figure out if they are creditworthy. To evaluate creditworthiness, Tala built an Android app that scores would-be borrowers in 20 seconds by using data on their phone. In addition, they make a credit decision to lend money in that 20 second timeframe and acts as the lender. Tala dynamically prices between 5%-11% for the term, which is dramatically lower than the average APR in these markets, which is 350%. In this episode, Siroya describes how she pioneered this new form of micro-lending.

There will be 11 billion people on the planet by the end of this century, and the challenge will be to sustainably and efficiently feed them. Food is becoming a big business, and big agriculture is taking over the Monsanto’s of the world with strong interests in profits. Amol Deshpande, CEO and co-founder of the Farmers Business Network, has raised $50M for the network and created a tool that uses data to help farmers thrive and maintain the family businesses they’ve had for generations. FBN takes an unconventional and disruptive approach by asking: “What good is the data if you can’t take action on it and do better for yourself?” Amol demos his product and bridges the divide in understanding in how our food supply actually works. Jason and Amol explore the world of GMOs and organics, and the future of feeding humanity.

The emergence of social media connecting millions worldwide (& via Facebook, that's a cool billion) has thrown the problem of online harassment into the forefront of everyday life. What can we do about it? What's at stake? How does it affect real life, including human rights, freedom of speech, & law enforcement? Does online anonymity enable trolling, or is it irrelevant? What motivates trolls, anyway? Joining Jason today are writers Quinn Norton & Kevin Marks who have examined these questions in-depth and lend their debating skills to this Harassment on the Internet & Free Speech Roundtable.

E678: Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Edward Humes on his book “Door to Door,” the world of transportation, the tech behind on-demand, & the future of alternative fuel, autonomous travel

Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist Edward Humes joins Jason to discuss one of humankind's greatest innovations and persistent problems: transportation. The two talk about Edward's latest book, "Door to Door: The Magnificent, Maddening, Mysterious World of Transportation," the technology behind the "have it now" economy, industry's revolution in the form of containerization (& its hidden costs, e.g. carbon emissions), the transportation juggernaut that is Dominoes Pizza, how to bully the Google car, security on planes & cargo ships, the future of autonomous cars & drones, best options for sustainable fuel, China as our greatest frenemy, and much more. Join us!

It's Part 2 of Chris Sacca and Matt Mazzeo of Lowercase Capital. In this hour, the conversation turns to the patriotic duty of voting, Chris's experience on "Shark Tank" & the illustration of social mobility, the tremendous eSports market, drug testing, new products at Lowercase Alpha & the power of SMS, the great responsibility of being a VC and spending other people's money, Chris's favorite portfolio company,Tala.co, which extends credit in emerging markets, investing in diversity, raising daughters in the princess industrial complex, and more.

Chris Sacca & Matt Mazzeo of Lowercase Capital join Jason in L.A. for a rollicking two-parter. In between the ribbing, Part 1 finds the three catching up on the universal principles of building companies, what Chris & Matt can bring to the table, why Twitter isn't growing & its best buyer prospects, why Snapchat is genius but hard (for Chris & Jason but not Matt, the native swiper), the lost art of storytelling in product development, investing with integrity, Chris's tips for avoiding meetings -- and much more. (Stay tuned for Part 2 next week!)

Entrepreneurs are driving all of the innovation today, and this episode's guest is no exception. Adam Ludwin, CEO & Co-founder of Chain created a tool that's helping top financial firms (NASDAQ, CapitalOne, Citi, Fidelity, Visa & more) deploy the blockchain. Adam demos his technology, and offers a fascinating and super clear explanation of how/why bitcoin & the blockchain were developed, how it works, common misperceptions, how the DAO hack happened & long-term effects, and how he got that insanely amazing domain name. Jason and Adam venture deep into other tech & culture territory, including whither Apple, who will buy Twitter, Snapchat v. Instagram, religion, oppressed societies, Hamilton (The Musical), and the hardest part of a startup (hint: it's not the starting up).

On location at Upfront Ventures, Mark Suster joins Jason to share the lessons he's learned from both sides of the table, as an entrepreneur and investor. Mark lends insight into the hottest topics in the investing world: why VCs are obsessed with ownership, who are the best founders and why?, what does it really take to make it, the questionable value of demo day, how do you wow a VC during your pitch, handling zombie companies, coming to terms with a massive miss (hint: Uber), being bullish on Andreessen-Horowitz and on IPOs, and much more.

News Roundtable! Cade Metz of Wired and Ellen Huet of Bloomberg are in the studio to talk with Jason about the latest tech news. On tap: the Apple event and what was relevant (anything?), the Andreessen Horowitz and The Wall Street Journal kerfuffle over a16z's returns, the never-ending train wreck that is Theranos, startups such as Hotel Tonight cutting back and tightening belts, drone-bearing burritos, Burning Man, Airbnb's new anti-discrimination policy, and more.

Noah Kagan, founder of SumoMe & AppSumo, started his career as employee #30 at Facebook, before getting fired and losing $185m in company shares. Lessons learned showed Noah what he truly he excels at -- building small businesses and helping them grow. As Director of Marketing at Mint.com he built that startup’s first 100k customers, and ultimately created the Sumo Group (SumoMe, AppSumo, KingSumo), which now has ~1m subscribers and generates 8 figures in revenue -- completely bootstrapped, with no venture capital. Noah talks about all this and more -- including his best email marketing tips and other tricks of the trade to build your site’s traffic, lists, and audience.

After years of angel investing, Jason constantly gets questions. Today, he answers 11 common questions for 2016, some that are timeless, others about the moment -- from advice for introverts to self-promote to approaches to tackling growth, from how do you get intelligence about your competitor’s pricing to the secret to finding a technical co-founder if you are a non technical founder. Plus, find out what Jason thinks is most valuable to focus on: product, market, growth, team, prototype? All this and much more.

Should we have open or closed borders? Should we build walls or bridges? Today on the program is CEO and co-founder of Munchery, Tri Tran, who fought his way into the U.S. from Vietnam and built a company that employs hundreds of people and that is changing the way we think about food. Especially in this time of heated debate around immigration, Tri’s story reminds us to look at the details of how we want to run our country -- which in a way is like running a company -- and ask: do we let the greatest entrepreneurs in, or force them to go elsewhere? Tri walks us through how Munchery redefines dinner — early inspirations, scaling his business, brand design, delivery efficiency, and more.

Ten or twenty years ago, if you were told that startups were going to try to build a business that is going to space, you would have laughed, because the only players in the space game were NASA, Russia, Japan, and China. But ten years ago, Elon Musk decided to start SpaceX. And now, we are starting to see a lot of people investing in space. Bob Richards is the co-founder and CEO of Moon Express, the first commercial, private sector company to get permission to leave Earth’s atmosphere. Bob wants to open up our understanding of how incredible the moon is. The long term vision of Moon Express is to show that a private sector company can go to the moon, unlock the resources there, and bring it back to earth to sell. Bob takes us on his odyssey starting with building a spacecraft in a garage, competing in the Google Lunar X PRIZE, and how VC’s and investors responded to his vision. Potential business cases, predictions on the future of space exploration and humanity, and more.

News Roundtable! Joining Jason is @jeffbercovici of @Inc and @OliviaZaleski of @bloomberg. The tech industry is moving at high speed; we are in the age of advancement. Companies are getting bigger, M&A and investment are going crazy -- but this leads to a lot of odd behavior in Silicon Valley. A riveting discussion that kicks off with the Hampton Creek controversy, while Jeff notes that the balance of power has become tilted between investors and founders. The conversation then segways to Peter Tiel executing greatest revenge in history by bankrupting Gawker, lending to the broader theme about fear of the power of wealthy people to go after publications they dislike. A debate over good journalism ensues, and the discussion ends with the group speculating about the future of robots and AI.

E667: Redpoint VC & analyst Tomasz Tunguz on his new book “Winning with Data,” advice for startups, using data to transform business, key investment outlook predictions, the best data-driven co’s & more

Something has changed in the way we build companies in the past decade, and that major change was data-driven product design. Storage and bandwidth became essentially free and unlimited, changing the way companies stored data. “Should we store this data?” was the big issue back in the day. What really matters now is how you study that data and what strategies you deploy based on that data. Venture capitalist, blogger and author Tomasz Tunguz joins Jason to discuss the data wave and how his experiences inspired his brand new book, “Winning with Data: Transform Your Culture, Empower Your People, and Shape the Future.” We learn about Tomasz’s path from his early days with the Google AdSense team, his three investment outlook predictions, and his advice for startups to leverage and execute data.

E666: PT2-Ed Catmull, President Pixar-Disney & author “Creativity, Inc.” on Disney merge, the art of good filmmaking, building creative culture through radical support, risk-taking to triumph & failure, & storytelling struggles that led to timeless

Pixar-Disney Co-founder & President, Ed Catmull, and author of “Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration,” is one of the greatest startup founders in the history of Silicon Valley. In this Part 2 episode, his conversation with Jason on This Week in Startups continues as he talks about his existential crisis after Toy Story’s explosive success, the unique struggles for each Pixar film, and building a creative culture at Pixar and Disney. His story is one of dogged resilience, filled with risks, mistakes and lessons learned, and it will inspire entrepreneurs and non-entrepreneurs alike.

E665: PT1-Ed Catmull, Pixar-Disney President & “Creativity, Inc.” author on his early days as a pioneer in computer animation, learning from George Lucas & Steve Jobs, struggles with Disney, the creative necessities of loyalty, change & failure

Pixar-Disney Co-founder & President Ed Catmull, and author of “Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration,” is one of the greatest startup founders in the history of Silicon Valley. Today he joins Jason on This Week in Startups to share his own personal story, perhaps the best that has come out of Pixar. We learn about Ed’s journey from his early days as a pioneer of computer animation, being hired by George Lucas to run the computer division at Lucasfilm, working with Steve Jobs to form Pixar (ultimately Pixar-Disney) and leading it to meteoric success and, over time, developing creative & sustainable management philosophies to share with the world. This is only the first of two parts, so stay tuned for much more!

Ari Levy of CNBC and Rolfe Winkler of The Wall Street Journal joined Jason for a must-see News Roundtable on This Week in Startups. An amazing discussion that kicked off with big deal of the week, Walmart snapping up Jet.com for $3b, that crackled on to Google, the government, anti-trust, the entire U.S. debt problem, the Chinese Market, the very future of energy (featuring, naturally, Elon), and the latest in startup CEOs behaving badly. And more.

E663: “Godfather of SaaS” Jason Lemkin shares the early indicators of hyper-growth SaaS & his investment strategies with LAUNCH Incubator

There are few people in the industry who really do the work, and take the work seriously. Many investors don’t take the work as seriously as the founders take their work. Being an investor is a great privilege, especially if you started off as a founder first. There are very few examples of investors working harder or as hard as the founders that they invest in, but SaaStr founder, Jason Lemkin, is one of those rare exceptions of the people who take the investing seriously. In this episode, Jason gives an update to the presentation he gave at the Angel Summit.

Jason “jams out” a number of growth tips and e-commerce tips with founders in this special “Jam Session” episode of This Week in Startups. Melody McCloskey of StyleSeat talks about leveraging data to drive growth and engagement, while Edgar Blazona of BenchMade Modern shares tips on optimizing paid acquisition via segmentation and landing pages. Then, David Temple of Hello Scout explains how to use offline acquisition to create trust. At the end, Jason asks one of the most candid questions a founder can ask, “Tell me about a near death experience, the worst moment in running your business.”

George Hotz is known for unlocking the iPhone and PlayStation, but most recently, as being the founder of Comma.ai, an autonomous driving startup. He and his team built a driver assistant system that will get increasingly more sophisticated, also known as Level 3. George deconstructs the core components of his technology, and explains how it can compensate for human error in driving. And paired with the up-and-coming phone app called Chffr, soon, they will have technology where you can compare data and optimize your commute. His success has much to do with his philosophy of staying open--to build prototypes, to get it out there, and to move the world forward.

The world of startups is a dog-eat-dog world, and Antonio Garcia Martinez shares all in his brutally candid book “Chaos Monkeys: Obscene Fortune and Random Failure in Silicon Valley." Antonio shares his journey starting as a Wall Street Goldman Sachs Strat and witnessing the market crash, pursuing and enduring the trials and tribulations of startup life (complete with hefty legal and fundraising battles), negotiating a tricky twin Twitter acquisition deal that alienated his co-founders, landing as an esteemed Product Manager at Facebook during its heady crazy pre-IPO days, seeing his hard work in Ads come to a crushing, brutal end … only to be hired at Twitter. Trade secrets of tech giants, back-door deals, SV culture, personal hijinx -- all this and, believe it or not, much more.

Spanning 135 cities across the globe, and producing around 2000 companies per year, the Founder Institute has become one of the biggest, most impactful programs for early stage companies in the world. In this episode, Jason sits down with the Adeo Ressi, Founder and CEO of the Founder Institute, to find out what makes Adeo’s entrepreneurship program different from the host of other incubators and accelerators out there. Adeo gives some background and lessons learned as a founding member of TheFunded.com, and shares his process of detecting successful founders as well as predicting which entrepreneurs will fail. As the owner of the LAUNCH Incubator, Jason is in his element comparing and contrasting the structure and practice of the Founder Institute with his guest.

E658: #AskJason at The Last Mile tech accelerator & training program at San Quentin State Prison

Today Jason is at San Quentin State Prison talking to prisoners participating in The Last Mile (TLM), a tech accelerator & training program to help prepare incarcerated individuals for successful reentry. Jason gives candid feedback on the products they’ve developed in their studies here. We see demos of Jason Jones’ GPA (Getting Parents Attention) that monitors and incentivizes good grades for student athletes, “Big Az” Ford’s f8, a connected fire prevention system, and Chris Schuhmacher’s Fitness Monkey, a platform to help users recover from addiction through health and fitness. Jason also answers tough questions about entrepreneurship, and the importance of making mistakes, overcoming obstacles, and staying true to oneself and one’s goals.

E657: SeedInvest Co-founder Ryan Feit on his role in passing JOBS Act, spearheading Title III & the equity crowdfunding revolution

Jason connects with equity crowdfunding pioneer Ryan Feit to discuss the groundbreaking Title III law, giving way to a brand new form of startup fundraising. The fight to end “80-year-old laws” regulating investment freedom has come to an end under the new section of the JOBS Act. As the CEO and Co-Founder of SeedInvest, as well as being an integral player in the movement to pass legislation to allow civilians the right to invest in startups, Ryan’s expertise in this new era of fundraising is unparalleled.

Esteemed reporter Iain Thomson of The Register and seasoned entrepreneur Robert Scoble of Upload VR join Jason for a gripping News Roundtable on this episode of This Week in Startups. Robert starts off the discussion with some juicy background on some of the cutting edge tech in virtual reality, while Iain explains why nobody should be worried about Tesla’s autopilot feature following the fatal accident. The group then rips apart some of the more fantastical ventures, such as a new military beta-tested jetpack, and Larry Page’s investments in flying cars. Finally, with the world on the edge after Brexit, this news roundtable takes a natural turn into both global and domestic political issues, including terrorism, gun control, and national security.

“The internet is the great masterpiece of human civilization.” The world wide web has shaped the modern world in ways that the greatest creative minds of the past could never have imagined. Author, journalist, columnist and critic Virginia Heffernan joins Jason to discuss the impact of the internet and how that impact inspired her journey through the creation of her brand new book, “Magic and Loss: The Internet as Art.” With an unprecedented writing background ranging from Staff Writer at The New York Times to national correspondent at Yahoo News, Virginia has been long overdue for publishing her first book.

E654: Producer David Gluck brings JOBS Act Title III to life with his immersive “The Speakeasy,” the first equity crowdfunding theater project in the U.S.

Immersive theater has been around for some time now, but “The Speakeasy” is turning heads -- since JOBS Act Title III took effect, it's the 1st crowdfunding theater project in the U.S. to offer equity. Jason sits down with David Gluck, the producer and general manager of the interactive 1920’s-themed theater experience “The Speakeasy,” to find out the process, pros and cons, and progress involved in the quest to opening day. Check out the show's Wefunder campaign here: https://wefunder.com/the.speakeasy.

Episode 653 of This Week in Startups is a special “Ask Jason” session filmed live at the Microsoft Reactor in front of an audience of up-and-coming entrepreneurs as a part of the Microsoft Global Startup Roadshow. From London, to Tel Aviv, to Beijing, founders from all over the world converge at Microsoft for this intimate Q&A session with Jason. One by one, Jason candidly answers questions on fundraising, mentorship & achieving product market fit as well as giving feedback on product pitches.

News Roundtable! Occupying the table with Jason are two distinguished tech journalists, Katie Benner of NYT Technology & Eric Newcomer of Bloomberg. There’s almost not enough time to cover all the biggest news in tech over the last few days. Between Gawker declaring bankruptcy, Microsoft’s LinkedIn acquisition and Walgreens ending its partnership with Theranos there is certainly no shortage of content today!

E651: Trello CEO Michael Pryor on scaling internationally to 1.1m daily users, benefits to hiring remote devs, and the future of work and communication

Trello CEO Michael Pryor sits down with Jason to talk about the business model that drove his company to such healthy and steady growth in Episode 651 of This Week in Startups. Grown to over 1.1 million users in just five years Trello has cemented itself in the world of enterprise software. Jason digs in deep to learn the secrets and hacks behind this young company’s success.

Episode 649 of This Week in Startups is a News Roundtable featuring Jessica Lessin, founder and editor-in-chief of The Information, and Nellie Bowles, staff writer for The Guardian. Jason riffs with the distinguished journalists on the polarizing and ongoing dispute between Peter Thiel and Gawker. Then, the discussion turns to include everything from the Trump campaign, to journalistic politics, and moral responsibility in the tech industry.

In episode 648 of This Week in Startups, Jason opens up his office hours to an audience of investors and entrepreneurs at the Microsoft Reactor in San Francisco to answer questions and analyze pitches. One by one, founders take the stage to pitch their products or simply to pick Jason’s brain. J.P. Martin of GrowX, Katherine Webster of Vets in Tech, and Keenan Williams of REZI, are just a few of the hard working entrepreneurs who stand up to hear Jason’s candid feedback on their ideas.

In episode 647 of This Week in Startups, Jason interviews the top three finalists of the 2015 IBM SmartCamp. First, he sits down with Jessika Lora, CEO & founder of the SmartCamp overall winner, CarForce. Then Mike Holt of Gridcomm, one of the finalists, explains how his company will save huge energy costs by implementing a network of smart street lamps. Finally, founder Yoly Avalos demonstrates why Bquate is disrupting the music industry by placing distribution in the hands of the artists. ****Interested in applying for SmartCamp in 2016? Leave your e-mail at smartcamp2015.com and we'll notify you when applications come out.****

Filmed live at the Microsoft Reactor in San Francisco, Jason takes the stage with seasoned entrepreneur and author of “The Lean Startup,” Eric Ries. Jason and Eric dive right into the meaty processes lined out in the bestselling book. They analyze real examples of the business experiments that Jason has personally tried out using tips and techniques pulled directly from Eric’s scientific method for achieving startup success. Get an inside look at where “The Lean Startup” revolution began.

E645: David Bennahum, Alpha Venture advisor & Founding Maker of Ready, shares his new coding education program for kids & the urgency of computational literacy

There was literally no program available to teach computational learning to kids past the age of ten…that is, until Ready was brought to market in February 2016. Jason sits down with Alpha Venture advisor and Ready Founding Maker David Bennahum in Episode 645 of This Week in Startups. David discusses the challenges of teaching coding to kids and shows off his software creator Ready, which aims to revolutionize the face of computational learning and education.

Accelerator programs have become an invaluable force in the world of startups. In episode 644 of This Week in Startups, Jason interviews a panel of accelerator thought leaders on the LAUNCH Stage at the 2016 LAUNCH Festival. Dave McClure of 500 Startups, Emily Kirsch of Powerhouse, and Cameron Teitelman of StartX convene to discuss the benefits of enrolling in an incubator, and the differences between the major accelerators available today. Then, Joel Spolsky sits down with Jason to talk about his massively successful Q&A website, Stack Overflow.

E643: Vicarious co-founder Scott Phoenix on innovating in AI & the race to unlock the human brain to create artificial general intelligence, the last tech humans will invent

True artificial intelligence is arguably the ultimate technology. To create machines that not only learn, but teach themselves, is sure to unlock new realms of technological possibilities that we haven’t even considered. This is exactly what Vicarious aims to accomplish, and exactly why distinguished investors such as Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerburg, and Peter Thiel are pouring funding into this revolutionary company. In episode 643 of This Week in Startups, Scott Phoenix, co-founder of Vicarious, sits down with Jason for an in-depth interview on the inner workings within his groundbreaking AI company.

Episode 642 of This Week in Startups is a News Roundtable featuring Dave Mathews, Founder and CEO of NewAer, and Veronica Belmont, writer and host of the extremely popular tech podcast The Sword & Laser. Jason leads the discussion on topics ranging from the reinvention of chat bots to the cutting edge of the 4D experience in AR/VR. With an off-the-cuff ‘Dueling Banjos’ segment on Alexa vs. Siri, this episode is a must see.

E641: Tony Xu, DoorDash Co-founder & CEO, on building a thriving business in the difficult on-demand market

Can the On Demand space stay afloat? Tony Xu, CEO and Co-founder of DoorDash, sits down with Jason for an in depth interview on This Week in Startups to explain how his company has scaled in the On Demand economy. The discussion ranges from growth and sustainability to the difficulties of the restaurant business in general. With the minimum wage increasing and the market consistently fluctuating, On Demand is one of the most difficult areas for entrepreneurs to break into. So getting insights from a founder who is thriving in that space is a truly educational experience.

E640: AOL co-founder Steve Case on the internet revolution & innovation roadmap in his new book, “The Third Wave: An Entrepreneur’s Vision of the Future”

Steve Case’s new book The Third Wave is the centerpiece for this special episode of This Week in Startups, and who better to discuss the content of the book than the author, Steve Case himself! Jason sits down with the legendary internet pioneer and founder of AOL to discuss the early days of the company, the intermediate years of the internet, and the future of innovation. The book focuses around the first two ‘Waves’ of the internet, and then delves into what Steve forecasts as the coming “Third Wave.” Steve’s vision for technology in the coming years is captivating, and this in depth interview helps explain the reasons he is listed among the great tech innovators of our time.

What do syndicates, Kickstarter campaigns, and AngelList all have in common? An all-star panel of angel Investors convenes to connect all of those dots and more in episode 639 of This Week in Startups. Gil Penchina of Flight.vc, Paige Craig of Arena Ventures, and Jenny Fielding of Techstars converge on the LAUNCH Stage at the 2016 LAUNCH Festival to hash out the trials and successes in the young and exciting field of Angel syndicates. Then, Nigel Eccles, CEO of FanDuel, uses real data to explain why daily fantasy leagues are gaining so much popularity. He also clears up the differences between gambling and fantasy sports.

After the retirement of the Concorde in 2003, the supersonic passenger jet has become long overdue for re-entering the market. In episode 638 of This Week in Startups, Boom CEO Blake Scholl sits down with Jason to explain how his company is resurrecting the dream of supersonic passenger flight, and why their new jet will be superior to the failed Concorde design. “The Concorde was 1950’s technology. Today we’ve got better aerodynamics, we’ve got software optimized aerodynamics, we’ve got better engines, better materials…” The list goes on as Blake explains not only the feasibility, but the reality of this exciting new venture!

Have you ever wondered what it takes to build a truly scalable business from the ground up? Filmed on the LAUNCH Stage at the 2016 LAUNCH Festival, episode 637 of This Week in Startups features two very successful entrepreneurs who share some insights into how they have managed to scale their companies. First, Jeff Glueck, CEO of Foursquare, chats with Jason about the company’s decision to split into two separate apps, and how that decision has affected the growth of the business. Then, Adi Tatarko, CEO of Houzz, gives an in-depth look at the company, where they started, and how they reached a monthly user base of over 35 million worldwide.

Filmed on the LAUNCH Stage at the 2016 LAUNCH Festival, Joe DeSimone of Carbon3D and Will Marshall of Planet Labs demonstrate why their companies go beyond the cutting edge in their respective industries. First, Will Marshall brings in one of Planet Labs’ ultra compact satellites, which, having deployed over 150 into orbit, are creating a hyper-efficient Earth imaging system with virtually endless application possibilities. Then, Jason sits down with Joe DeSimone to find out what Carbon3D brings to the market, and how their innovative new approach to 3D printing is creating stronger, more sustainable products from higher quality materials.

It’s no secret that entrepreneurs everywhere are feeling the effects of the constricting tunnel of capital flow. Filmed on the LAUNCH Stage at the 2016 LAUNCH Festival, Episode 635 of This Week in Startups features an all-star VC panel with Jed Katz of Javelin Venture Partners, Aileen Lee of Cowboy Ventures, and Hunter Walk of Homebrew. Jason doesn’t shy away from asking the tough questions to get a glimpse into the minds of these seasoned VCs, find out what they’re looking for, and where they’re placing their bets. Then Kirt McMaster of Cyanogen, the largest distribution of Android on Earth, joins Jason for a fireside chat on the LAUNCH Stage. Kirt gives an in-depth look at his groundbreaking company and the future post-app ecosystem with CyanogenMod.

The world has become flooded with data over the past 10 to 20 years. Hadley Wickham, Professor of Statistics at Rice University and Chief Scientist at RStudio, explains the most efficient ways to sort through the oceans of useless data and find what you’re looking for. Hadley became a rockstar in the world of data science by creating a package called ggplot2, which turns data into visualisations. Jason and Hadley also discuss the process of “open writing” in modern technical journals. Then, Jason shares his desire to make predictions, and hopes that Hadley can share some advice on how to utilize statistics to make accurate predictions as an investor. But the conversation pivots towards the big philosophical questions… “Is God in the data?”

Are Millennials too entitled? Is Artificial Intelligence going to destroy the workforce? What if you had to choose between two presidential candidates you don’t like … ? (Hypothetically, of course.) On today’s News Roundtable, Episode 633 of This Week in Startups, Jason discusses all of these and much more with Ben Parr, author of Captivology: The Science of Capturing People’s Attention, and Lon Harris, Producer and Writer at Inside.com. With topics ranging from the boundaries of free speech and privacy to Jason’s plans for a transportation overhaul as the future mayor of San Francisco, this is an episode you won’t want to miss!

E632: Parker Thompson, a.k.a. @StartupLJackson, shares insights from creating his wildly popular Twitter persona & turns full focus toward new work at AngelList

In episode 632 of This Week in Startups, Jason sits down with Parker Thompson, creator of popular parody Twitter account @StartupLJackson, current partner at AngelList, and previous partner at 500 Startups. Topics of conversation range from the inspiration behind Startup L. Jackson to having ‘sharp elbows’ on the internet, from diversity in entrepreneurship and investment to how AngelList syndicates and equity crowdfunding rules are changing the venture capital landscape.

If you’ve ever experienced frustration in the face of the U.S. higher education system and mounting student debt, you’re not alone. In episode 631 of This Week in Startups, filmed at LAUNCH Festival 2016, Jason guides a fireside chat with Sebastian Thrun, CEO and co-founder of Udacity, and George Zachary, general partner at CRV and heavy investor in Udacity. They discuss the broken system for higher education, MOOCs, and how Udacity continues to help workers adjust and succeed in a rapidly shifting job market. Then, at the LAUNCH Angel Summit, Jonathon Triest from Ludlow Ventures provides inspiration and examples on how authenticity is crucial to success.

Today, Jason is joined on the LAUNCH Festival stage by Shervin Pishevar and Brogan Bambrogan, Co-founders of Hyperloop Technologies. The Hyperloop is happening and we learn all about it! How it works, costs, location, government support (here and abroad), infrastructure, potential affects of the current Presidential race, the nature of ‘new cities’ and all the incredible innovation surrounding it.

E628: SocialCapital’s Chamath Palihapitiya on the state of the tech industry, politics, diversity, four keys to picking investors, and the changing morality in America at LAUNCH Festival 2016

At 2016 LAUNCH Festival, Jason sits down with Chamath Palihapitiya, Founder and CEO of Social Capital. It's classic, candid Chamath sharing his insights on the changing morality in America (for better and worse), the insanity of Donald Trump, the critical importance of diversity in venture capital, income inequality, why we should hope that Theranos' Elizabeth Holmes will prevail, the four things you should look for when choosing your investors, predictions on self-driving cars, which will be the next $300b company -- and much more. You don't want to miss this!

In episode 626 of This Week in Startups, Jason sits down with Zapier CEO and co-founder Wade Foster. Through the lens both of their experiences with Zapier – Jason as a user and Wade as a founder – they discuss the origins of Zapier, how Wade and his fellow co-founders have navigated the tricky waters of incubators and raising capital in the past five years, and the future of the company. They also spend time talking about the power of automation, the future of work, and managing distributed teams. Read below for some of the highlights from the episode.

Jason talks to founders of two very different, emerging markets: solar energy and artisanal mixers. His first guest is Jonah Greenberger, whose company Bright is bringing affordable solar power installation to developing countries. It’s a great conversation about the state of solar, both in the US and abroad, and the power of brand ambassadors and providing an entirely new career opportunity to hundreds of students in Mexico. Next up is Jennie Ripps, the creator of the first tea cocktail mixer, Owl’s Brew.

In episode 624 of This Week in Startups, Intercom cofounder Des Traynor returns to the LAUNCH Incubator with another powerhouse talk. “Thinking Through the Funnel,” Des leads founders through different issues they should consider when trying to acquire users. Des lays a foundation by saying that most companies have no difficulty getting their first hundred, thousand, or sometimes even million users; it’s keeping those users that is the truly challenging task for companies. Read on for a quick walkthrough of the four main steps of getting — and keeping — users.

E623: Dennis Mortensen’s startup, x.ai, is an AI assistant that sets up meetings like a human, and that’s only the beginning

Scheduling a simple coffee meeting can take days and countless emails to complete, but Dennis Mortensen wants to change all that -- and more. In episode 623 of “This Week in Startups,” the founder of x.ai show us his AI assistant, which sets meetings for you like an actual human. He also shares his thoughts on Siri, Echo, the Danish tax system, his vision for x.ai’s AI assistants conquering other tasks, and the future of artificial intelligence.

E622: Alec Ross, Sen. Advisor for Innovation during Hillary Clinton’s tenure as Sec. of State, discusses his new book & the “Industries of the Future” propelling us forward

In episode 622 of This Week in Startups, Jason sits down with Alec Ross, author of The Industries of the Future to discuss technology, employment, and the future of the United States economy (as well as the world). Their conversation ranges from Alec's experiences working as Senior Advisor for Innovation for Hillary Clinton when she was Secretary of State, to how unemployment rates in the U.S. differ from elsewhere, to robots and technology replacing jobs in the future.

On episode 619 of This Week in Startups, Jason sits down for another News Roundtable, with Molly Wood from Marketplace, and Nellie Bowles from The Guardian. Through the course of conversation, they touch on some of the hottest issues in startups and Silicon Valley news: ongoing developments from Theranos, the competitiveness of incubators like Y Combinator, room for improvement at both LinkedIn and Yahoo, and how San Francisco is faring as the Super Bowl approaches. Here are some of the highlights from their conversation.

Today Jason sits down with Brock Pierce, Managing Partner at Blockchain Capital and Chairman of the Bitcoin Foundation. Together, they discuss blockchain protocol, bitcoin mining and scalability, innovative use cases, and the future of cryptocurrency. Throughout the episode, Jason asks Brock important questions about the technology and future of Bitcoin and blockchain; these answers provide insight into the cryptocurrency industry as a whole, and the huge potential it will have to change the world.

Wall Street Journal's John Carreyrou began reporting on Theranos nearly a year ago, since uncovering many troubling facts about the fast-rising startup, amid a firestorm of controversy. In October 2015, John informed the public about the co's struggles with its blood-testing tech. This week, it's the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) findings that Theranos lab poses an immediate danger to patient health. And today, in an exclusive interview, John breaks the news that Walgreens is suspending use of a CA Theranos lab and closing its Wellness Center, effective immediately. Jason and John dive into the details of the story, starting from John's initial tip about something amiss through today's stunning developments. We learn exactly why CMS considers Theranos to be a public health threat; how Theranos Chief Scientific Officer Ian Gibbons, before he took his own life, told his wife that nothing at the company was working; John being repeatedly ignored on requests to interview Founder Elizabeth Holmes; insights on John's reporting, his sources, and the WSJ vetting process; the grave risks of bringing a healthcare product too soon to market; when, if ever, this story will end -- and much more.

Today Jason sits down with Ben Rattray, founder and CEO of Change.org. It’s the launch of their mobile platform, Change Politics, where citizens can vote on issues and submit questions directly to candidates (so far, to Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, Chris Christie, and counting!). Ben shares his insights from the pivots he’s experienced over the last 9 years, and also stories on how his platform became the change agent for many important issues, from school bullying to suicide, to the Boy Scouts finally allowing gay members, and more. A fascinating discussion about politics, society, and the power of the people.

It’s the News Roundtable with Danielle Morrill, CEO and Founder of Mattermark, and Katie Benner, reporter at the NY Times. Each brings their expertise of deep data and reporting to shed light on the state of the market and projects for 2016. Among the many questions tackled: are we going to have a crash, or just a correction? (and what's the difference?); will there be IPOs in 2016 … and should there be??; what would be the ripple effect of Chinese stock market crash? is this a scary landscape, or exciting? (i.e., time to bail … or buy?) The three also discuss the Apple’s latest forays into A.I. and VR, the on-demand market, the unit economics of Uber, their favorite apps and guilty pleasures. And a heated debate about the ethics of publishing data on companies perceived to be going south … Don’t miss this!

As Co-founder and CEO of Powerhouse, the world’s first solar-focused incubator and accelerator, Emily Kirsch thinks about energy a lot. On today’s This Week in Startups, Jason and Emily sit down to talk all things solar, including the current state of the solar industry and where it’s headed in the next 20 years. Hear Emily’s predictions about the future of solar energy (looking bright), the nuts and bolts of how she runs her incubator and accelerator (and the difference between the two), and a great number of wide-ranging and in-depth discussions from oil in the Middle East to the Tesla Powerwall.

Andy Artz, Partner at Social Capital, shares the major keys to mobile growth success with the LAUNCH Incubator. But first, brothers Kirill & Oleg Zdornyy, the winners of Jason's "Request For Startup" (RFS) stop by the studio to demonstrate Cheshire.tech.

It’s an All #AskJason to jumpstart your 2016! Jason answers 14 fan questions, from selling ideas to successful startups to the top 5 things you should consider when pitching to investors, from business processes that have been surprisingly valuable to Jason to whether he would hire someone with a felony conviction. Also on tap: video trends you can capitalize on, ways to innovate with government, and Jason’s favorite question: is it better to focus on number of users or revenue stream?? All this and much more -- don’t miss it!

E611: Jed Katz of Javelin Venture Partners shares his 52-pt Series A checklist at LAUNCH Incubator; bonus: HomeHero’s Kyle Hill on 7 values that guide his company culture

Today's two-parter begins with a 52-point Series A checklist from Jed Katz, Managing Director of Javelin Venture Partners. Speaking to the LAUNCH Incubator, Jed lays it all out, from how to present yourself to investors, to how much money to raise, to which VCs to target. Then a bonus segment, and one of the most popular talks from LAUNCH Scale 2015: Kyle Hill, founder of HomeHero, Kyle reveals the seven values that guide his company culture.

E610: Chris Impey on “Beyond: Our Future in Space” & the great entrepreneurial opportunities awaiting us there

Space is the topic today, where out there exists incredible business opportunities. From mining asteroids to low-orbit internet satellites, the entrepreneurial space race is on! Jason's guest is Chris Impey, astronomy professor and author of "Beyond: Our Future in Space," and they dive into everything from our "exploration gene" to Mars colonization and the Mars tsars, the amazing range of opportunities for startups wanting to break into the outer limits, why we haven't found evidence of intelligent life and, inevitably, sex in outer space. And much more! A fascinating, mind-expanding discussion about the frontier that is closer than you think. As Jason says: "You don't have to watch science fiction anymore, you can watch startups."

It's a special #AskJason, featuring Rachel Proffitt and Todd Carpenter from WSGR, answering your startup legal questions. On today's docket: learn the absolute legal must-haves when bootstrapping a startup (and what can wait...), the convertible note versus series seed stock conundrum, the tricky business of firing your co-founder, determining the valuation of your company, and more!

It's the News Roundtable: Best of 2015! Jason recaps the biggest stories of the year with Ari Levy, Senior Tech Reporter at CNBC, and Dave Mathews, inventor and founder of Newaer. The trio reviews 2015 and predicts 2016 across many areas, such as drone technology, self-driving cars, how Jack will run Twitter, the hottest space race (between Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos?), why Elon is Entrepreneur of the Year (maybe Decade), and Amazon’s dominance in an increasing number of markets. Also in the mix is a Quirky post-mortem, speculation on low IPOs, a message from Jason directly to Theranos employees and what this story represents about journalism, a sushi bet on when 100 driverless commercial vehicles will operate within a city’s limits -- and much more.

Today, a special ecommerce episode! Jason sits down with three startup founders innovating in this exciting space. First is Edgar Blazona of BenchMade Modern, an on-demand furniture service that builds personalized sofas, to-the-inch, in 24 hours; second is Kate Kendall from CloudPeeps, a marketplace that connects businesses with the top freelance marketing, content, and community professionals; third is Jason Demant from Bento, an on-demand food delivery app that allows users to customize their meal with Asian-inspired dishes. Thank you to Braintree for sponsoring these three great conversations exploring ecommerce trends, challenges, and opportunities in 2016 and beyond.

E606: Tim Draper (DFJ) & Troy Carter (AtomFactory) on the state of investing: what’s broken, what’s coming, the virtues of transparency & paranoia, and why Theranos is still one to watch

In today's episode, Jason sits down for an investors fireside with leaders Tim Draper (DFJ and Draper Associates) and Troy Carter (Atom Factory) at the Draper Venture Network CEO Summit. Tim uses his extensive experience to analyze the current startup landscape and predict the future of investing. Troy's unique background in the music industry allows him to draw parallels between unicorn CEOs and former clients like Lady Gaga. Tim and Troy offer their unique perspectives on a wide variety of topics, including launching incubators, what the sheer volume of startups means for the ecosystem, the biggest challenges looking for angel investing, characteristics budding founders need to be better entrepreneurs, the importance of transparency, needing both courage and paranoia to succeed -- and much more.

Two of the top-rated speakers from LAUNCH Scale 2015! First is Jared Fliesler, General Partner at Matrix Partners and former growth & product guru at Square, Google, and Slide. Jared shares his best strategies on product marketing, focusing on one thing as a startup, and developing clear, concise and compelling messaging. Second is Erik Moore, Founder of Base Ventures, who offers rock star tips on seeking VC capital and the importance of hustle. And Erik has an awesome surprise ... he invites Bay Area rapper Too Short to the stage, who tells us how he employed entrepreneurial hustle to build his business.

News Roundtable! Joining Jason today are Ryan Block (AOL, Engadget) and Brian Alvey (Weblogs Inc., Recurrency), both seasoned and savvy entrepreneurs who are now helming early-stage companies. The trio tackle the latest news, including Yahoo! mess (Yikes!) and Marissa predictions, the interesting 2015 IPO situation (meaning, the lowest # of IPO since 2009), all about Zuckerberg's philanthropy (only on the Internet can you be criticized for giving away $45b), is the Bitcoin-creator mystery solved or what?, Alibaba buying China's largest paper and reflections on our own content landscape, the state of fundraising now and what's to come, Ryan reveals the name of his new company on-air for the first time! -- and much more.

Legendary angel investor and "Shark Tank" star Chris Sacca returns to TWiST! Chris and Jason sit down to discuss everything from investing in relationships to Jack Dorsey as Twitter's CEO (now and early on). He talks about what he looks for in an investment, how he met Matt Mazzeo, those early years with Twitter and selling people on the business, and how his dream job involved "a lot of being on the phone, a lot of yelling at people... high risk, high reward." Chris shares his experiences on "Shark Tank," how fun it is to bust the chops (he uses a different term...) of Mark Cuban and Kevin O'Leary, and how TV could be part of the next chapter of Chris' life. Chris also listens to pitches from three companies that came out of Jason's LAUNCH Incubator - Requested, LeadIQ and Benchmade Modern - offering feedback to each of the three founders about their businesses and how to move forward.

Today’s guest is Roger Dickey, Founder of Gigster, an on-demand software development platform that just raised $10m in Series A funding led by Andreessen Horowitz. Roger showcases to Jason how Gigster works, using a sample “Uber for Pizza” project to illustrate how quickly a quote is offered and why it’s so important to qualify the customer. We learn about “the central brain of Gigster” (the AI that puts together the quote so quickly), what it will take to make Gigster a billion-dollar business, the fastest path from an idea to a finished product, why startups should outsource their development and why technical teams can get too attached to their prototypes. Roger also reflects on his time at Zynga (where he founded Mafia Wars and served as a GM), why the company isn’t doing as well as it used to (hint: a tough mobile shift...), and the differences between dominating social gaming on Facebook and dominating in on mobile. ALSO! A bonus segment from LAUNCH Scale, featuring Sue Khim, Founder of Brilliant.org, sharing her growth tactics: specifically, how focusing on triggers, not users, got Brilliant into the "2 comma club."

All Shark Tank / Ask Jason at TWiST Live! Join in as Jason hears a plethora of startup pitches and serves up his trademark searing feedback. Among the companies we meet: a data platform dairy farmers, an app that helps parents create healthy menus for their kids, the world's smallest GPS pet tracker, tools to instantly find information you need, a direct link between man and machine, doctors on demand -- and much more! Thank you to our partner, Samsung Global Innovation Center, and to Silicon Valley Bank at WeWork Golden Gate.

E600: TWiST Live! Eric Ries on The Lean Startup, the law of sustainable growth, lessons learned, and looking ahead

It’s a special TWiST Live for Ep600! Jason sits down with Eric Ries, author of “The Lean Startup” and the upcoming, Kickstarter-backed, “The Leader’s Guide.” Eric and Jason discuss in depth The Lean Startup methodology, what it means today with so many startups out there, and his plans for future publications and resources for supporting entrepreneurship. We hear Eric’s own lessons learned as an entrepreneur (i.e., don’t refuse customers who want to try your product), his insights into the law of sustainable growth and what it means, and secrets on how to measure exponential growth before the point of critical mass. Eric also takes questions from the live audience, answering questions about iterating a new product on a strict timeline, raising money, what makes a great VC, and what he would change if he had to write “The Lean Startup” again (hint: a lot). Join us!

E599: Building a marketplace & taking it to the streets: Marco Zappacosta of Thumbtack & Sonny Mayugba of Requested share super-growth tactics at LAUNCH Scale

LAUNCH Scale 2015 featured 50+ speakers sharing their best growth strategies. And today’s episode features two of these amazing talks. First is Marco Zappacosta, Founder of the unicorn Thumbtack, who talks about his epic success and explains how he built his billion-dollar marketplace. Next is Sonny Mayugba, Founder of Requested, who gave the highest-rated talk of the conference with his presentation on how to grow your startup using street teams.

Babak Hodjat is Co-founder and Chief Scientist of Sentient, the most-funded artificial intelligence startup in the world, which emerged from stealth in 2014 after raising more than $100m Series C (the largest round ever by an AI startup). Though already going strong in financial trading (with 1.5+ CTUs globally), last week they launched Sentient Aware for E-commerce, which is already being used by the Canadian shoes.com and which Babak demonstrates for us. Babak is also the main inventor of the tech behind Siri, and he and Jason discuss the actual intelligence level of Siri, along with many other fascinating aspects of AI, including the ethics behind it, where it falls on the “worry” scale between simple memory chips and nuclear weapons, its potential impact on warfare, gambling, and self-driving cars, and the inevitable 20-year sushi bet! AI is capable of improving ourselves (in the case of health), knowing what we want before it even exists (in the case of e-commerce), but will it be capable of destroying humanity?

E597: The “Godfather of SaaS” Jason Lemkin shares his Saastr community, criteria for investing, analysis of SaaS startups & unicorns, and what’s next

Jason sits down with the "Godfather of Saas," Jason Lemkin, to discuss everything from the SaaS (software as a service) industry to angel investing criteria, from Lemkin's current venture Saastr, to what the field has in store. We learn about the history of SaaS, why we owe a huge debt to Salesforce, and why so few enterprise customers “try before they buy.” The two Jasons further discuss Microsoft’s foray into SaaS, why “lockin” is a myth, the successes of -- and differences -- between Slack and HipChat, Lemkin’s SaaS investments (including Talkdesk, Algolia), why founders don’t make great VCs, Lemkin’s criteria for an investment (hint: the founder has to be better than him) and Lemkin’s advice on lifetime value to budding SaaS startups. Finally, the Jasons posit what would happen if Google or Microsoft came out with a free Slack competitor (protip: do not get arrogant about your engineers), the hurdles in monetizing a free product, why an acquisition might cost nothing for a big tech company, the mistake many companies made in 2008 and 2009, why choosing the celebrity investor isn’t always the best idea, the sheer volume of startups today -- and much more.

Today Jason explores the world of synthetic biology with Matthew Markus, Co-founder and CEO of Pembient, a startup creating synthetic rhinoceros horns to disrupt the $750m illegal rhino trade and stop the poaching and farming of this increasingly endangered animal. Matthew explains why the horns are so valued in East Asia (medicinal and luxury uses), how this overwhelming demand threatens the current rhino population, and his solution to end this problem. We see how Matthew’s startup actually creates and 3D prints the horn and how close biologically the synthetic are to actual horns (very close, and working to get closer every day). Jason and Matthew also discuss the synbio industry, the technology involved, some of the great things happening with food and synthetic biology (imagine steak created in a lab with no beef in it), and the future of synthetic biology and how these scientific advances could apply to humans, society, and bioterrorism.

It’s the Futures of the Smartwatch, Transportation, and On-Demand from LAUNCH Mobile, Wearables & IoT! First, Eric Migicovsky, founder and CEO of Pebble, shows us his latest in timeround and talks with Jason and Peter Rojas (co-founder of Engadget and Gizmodo) about how apps are becoming more integrated into smartwatches and where the technology is headed. Second, Jason, Peter, and Janice Fraser (Director, Innovation Practice at Pivotal) explore the Future of Transportation with Skully, a motorcycle helmet with a heads-up display that provides information like speed, upcoming traffic, weather, and maps to keep the driver's eyes on the road, and Automatic, a device that connects to the car, allowing users to access all of the car's data and become better drivers. Third, they look at the Future of On Demand and apps as a service with with Luxe (valet parking), Scout (personal travel concierge), and Wrapify (make money while you drive). LAUNCH Mobile, Wearables & Iot was presented by our friends at Pivotal.

Amir Efrati of The Information and Eric Newcomer of Bloomberg join Jason today to break down the latest tech news. Twitter's new heart and its meaning; Prop F failure, Airbnb dominance, and San Francisco's housing crisis; Google's solution to its fragmentation; Android antics; smartwatches and why the Apple Watch hasn't taken off with consumers; Square's IPO and the dangers of filing for an IPO too late; why journalists are obsessed with unicorn companies; how self-driving cars will impact companies like Uber, how long we have to wait until mass adoption, how Uber will handle growing in China and India; Jason's 2019 mayoral campaign -- and much more.

E592: Miles Beckett, “lonelygirl15” creator, returns to healthcare and builds Silversheet, a verification platform and community for doctors, nurses, and surgery centers

Miles Beckett, creator of the first web series "lonelygirl15," joins Jason today to discuss his latest adventure. Returning to his M.D. roots, Miles founded Silversheet, a verification platform for doctors and nurses and a certification platform for surgery centers. A fascinating conversation about the rise of technology (and optimism) in healthcare, the importance of network effect and its role in Silversheet's development, future field developments including telemedicine and occupational outlook for professionals, why med schools are losing money, current system challenges (hint: if you have kids, don't go to Urgent Care ... go to the ER!) -- branding, how "lonelygirl15" came about, the history of YouTube, and much more.

Today, it’s a special #AskJason: mobile, wearables & Internet of Things (IoT) edition, with special guest Janice Fraser, the Director of Innovation Practice at Pivotal. Jason and Janice lend insights to fans’ pressing questions on m/w/IoT, including why IoT is so important, the states of virtual and augmented reality, what the Apple watch really needs to succeed, whither mobile in emerging, global markets -- and will we still be driving cars in 5-10 years?

E590: TheTake & Minbox: two LAUNCH festival alums take great risks to innovate and succeed — and become leaders in very different markets

Today’s guests for this two-parter: Tyler Cooper, Founder & CEO of TheTake, a platform for identifying people and places in movies, and Alexander Mimran, Founder & CEO of Minbox, a cloud file-sharing and storage software. Both are graduates of the LAUNCH Festival, and Jason sits down with each to hear about their company’s progress since debuting.

E584: Jeffrey Pfeffer, Professor at Stanford Business School, on the toxic “Leadership B.S.” that plagues companies and stifles true innovation

Today's guest is Jeffrey Pfeffer, Professor at Stanford Business School, whose new book "Leadership B.S.: Fixing Workplaces and Careers One Truth at a Time" tackles the leadership crisis plaguing companies and stifling true innovation.

E583: Niklas Zennstrom, Founder of Skype and Atomico, and Sebastian Siemiatkowski, Founder of Klarna, with Jason at #STHLMtech

At STHLM TECH FEST Jason sits down with Skype and Atomico Founder Niklas Zennstrom and Klarna Founder Sebastian Siemiatkowski. An amazing conversation spanning: Stockholm v. Silicon Valley breakdown as the best place to start your company, how Niklas came to invest in now-unicorn Klarna, how Sebastian got the #1 VC (Mike Moritz) to not only invest but also join the Board, Niklas' experiences being sued for billions by the music labels over his co. Kazaa in the early 2000’s, how the idea for creating Skype came about, why Niklas decided to sell Skype for $8.5b to Microsoft (and if he regrets selling), how Niklas’s $450m VC fund Atomico provides more value than just money (hint: international growth), how the Stockholm startup ecosystem is booming and has the most unicorns of anywhere in the world per capita, the increasingly urgent topic of immigration -- and much more.

Today, it’s a special #AskJason: mobile, wearables & Internet of Things (IoT) edition! Jason lends insights to fans’ pressing questions on m/w/IoT, including the best wearable safety tech for bicyclists, Apple watch and glanceables, how to coach clients over mobile, whether podcasting and smartphones will take over terrestrial radio, and more.

E581: The Future of Transportation with Uber, Tesla & Delivery Hero: how they became global leaders, keeping the vision, challenges in the road ahead

Today’s episode is an incredible two-parter from STHLM TECH FEST. First, a fascinating discussion on the “Future of Transportation” with three companies leading the charge. Jason and Tyler Crowley talk with Uber European General Manager Jo Bertram, Tesla Chief Product Officer Peter Carlsson, and Delivery Hero CEO and Co-founder Niklas Ostberg (online food-ordering service in 34 countries), and Kees Koolen, Founding Partner at EQT Ventures. Among many gems, we learn how leading up to Model S release Tesla was burning $100m per quarter, how the car industry thought they would only sell 3,000 vehicles over their lifecycle (and they now sell 1,200 per week...and are thinking about the future of autonomous cars….); how Uber has legalized ride-sharing in most US cities and is one of the safest transportation options in every city they operate in, but still has a fight ahead in Europe; how Delivery Hero has raised $1b and what their path to profitability looks like (scale!) and why they might start making and delivering its own food. Next up we get a visit from the Prince of Sweden Daniel Westling and hear two pitches in the transportation space from Shipwallet (no-click shipping) and Fidesmo (a connected card).

E580: Daniel Ek, Founder & CEO of Spotify, on the state of streaming, tenacity, transparency, competition, inspiration — and what’s next for the music juggernaut

Daniel Ek started Spotify in 2006 with a vision to revitalize the music industry, by giving consumers unprecedented access to tracks and creating a novel, sustainable business model. Now music-streaming is the norm, every player is in the game — and pioneer Spotify is sitting on top of the world with 20m+ paid subscribers. On stage with Jason at the STHLM TECH FEST, Daniel shares his journey, from starting his first company at 14, to bootstrapping Spotify with his own money, to dealing with competitors, to what’s next for the industry leader. It’s a fascinating discussion on music (and the joy and pain of innovating in this most challenging space), Spotify’s early dark days and hard lessons, startup transparency, thoughts on the Google Apple YouTube Tidal Taylor Swift potpourri, Daniel’s strategy for handling competition (hint: making Spotify better), Europe’s awesome and crazy cheap bandwidth (get with the program, America), breaking the music biz stranglehold, the future of streaming -- and much more.

E579: Founder Bryan Johnson sold Braintree to build an extraordinary world with OS Fund and next-level synthetic biology, A.I., space tools, transportation, and more

When Founder Bryan Johnson sold Braintree to eBay in 2013, he decided to build something extraordinary to make the world a better place. So he founded OS Fund to invest in early-stage science companies working on solutions to our planet's biggest problems, in the fields of synthetic biology, artificial intelligence, space tools, transportation. What's more, Bryan just created an open-source playbook for others to do the same -- one that demystifies investing in science so that more needed dollars can find these important companies. Bryan and Jason have an amazing conversation that spans science discoveries, religion, ideology, investment challenges and opportunities, our greatest societal threats, the latest in life extension, what's really going on in A.I., paying it forward, striving for peaceful co-existence, nuclear weapons, and (naturally) a sushi bet involving manned drones. Don't miss this!

E578: Tim O’Reilly’s WTF Economy takes on how tech is transforming the workforce, creating a new narrative for the future of business and society

Today's special guest is Tim O'Reilly, media pioneer, publisher extraordinaire, a hero of Jason and inspiration for many. The Founder of O'Reilly Media stops by the studio to talk about WTF Economy (that's ... What's the Future?) -- specifically, how technology is transforming the workplace, the challenges and opportunities we face as a result, and our best ways to move forward.

E577: Bryn Mooser’s RYOT.org is using VR to transform journalism and bring us a deeper, visceral understanding of the most important stories from around the world

Today's guest is Bryn Mooser, Co-Founder of RYOT.org. RYOT is a breaking news site with embedded calls-to-action -- and it's now transforming journalism by using VR to tell the most powerful stories from around the world. Bryn stops by the studio with RYOT's VR gear & camera, and Jason dons the goggles (w/an audience look-see as well) to virtually experience the bombed-out city of Aleppo Syria, post-earthquake Nepal, the Sierras and more. It's an exciting conversation about the latest innovations in VR and why it works to create empathy, filming in war zones and areas in crisis, the importance of media calls to action, celebrity philanthropy, viewer engagement, what countries are most at-risk in the world, and much more.

Today, it’s a special #AskJason: mobile, wearables & Internet of Things (IoT) edition! Jason lends insights to fans’ pressing questions on m/w/IoT, including mobile-first strategies for new startups, the security of IoT (everything is connected: where is too much?!), is mobile taking over design and content?, opportunities in the massive smartphone penetration in emerging markets, and the challenges of growing mobile hardware using lean startup methods. This is the first in a series of special #AskJasons presented by Pivotal Labs. LAUNCH & Pivotal are teaming up to host Mobile, Wearables & IoT at Fort Mason in San Francisco, October 15-16. More info at: launchmw.com. Join us!

E576: LAUNCH Incubator 2: Matt Epstein, VP Marketing of Zenefits, opens his playbook & shares how he led the SaaS powerhouse to monumental growth in 3yrs

After figuring out your product-market fit, there is nothing else your startup should be doing other than making sure you are getting that hockey stick growth. Matt Epstein, VP Marketing at Zenefits, dropped by the LAUNCH Incubator to tell us exactly how it's done. Matt was the first employee hired at Zenefits and has been leading the charge on their monumental growth over the last 3 years (from 3 to 1,200 employees and $0 to $21 million in annual recurring revenue!). Matt opens up the “Zenefits playbook” for how they achieved this massive growth, which consists of: finding product / market fit, scaling with machines, scaling with people, and then doing everything else you can to get growth. Matt teaches why finding your “secret sauce” is so important because it gives you data on what the best way to sell your product is, how to scale with machines in search of repeatable SaaS metrics, what to look for in scaling with people (and what types of people you need to hire right away), what three essential questions you need to ask when hiring your first VP Marketing, VP Marketing Operations, and Sales Development Reps, what the five biggest screw ups they had at Zenefits were and how you can avoid them (i.e. 10x your goals!). Don't miss this!

Joining Jason today is Greg Sommers, CEO & Founder of Sandstone Diagnostics, Inc., a consumer wellness company that creates gadgets and develops resources to help people monitor health. Greg's latest is dontcookyourballs.com, dedicated to male fertility testing and education -- specifically, bringing it to the privacy and convenience of your home. It's a fascinating discussion about the future of healthcare and home diagnostics, how Greg developed the project, working with the FDA, the cost of innovating in this space, how the consumer is taking control of his/her health and all that implies, Jason's day at a fertility clinic -- and much more.

Hummer Winblad Venture Partners was founded in 1989 as the first VC fund to invest exclusively in software companies. Today Jason sits down Ann Winblad, technology investing legend and the firm’s Co-founder and Managing Director. Jason and Ann discuss Ann’s journey as an entrepreneur and a wide range of riveting topics: how Ann started her first company Open Systems in 1976 and sold it for $16m in cash in 1983 (an enormous sum then!), how there was only $350m invested in software in 1990 versus $23b in 2014, their unicorn-filled first fund w/ 8 of 16 investments going public, companies Ann wished they invested in, qualities she looks for in entrepreneurs, why companies go under, why A-round investing is so much fun but so few do it, why enterprise software is not in a bubble, why Bill Gates was the most impressive entrepreneur in the 1980’s (and what it was like dating him), her experiences as a woman in venture capital, being optimistic about the world’s future while concerned about America’s, and much more!

News Roundtable! Joining Jason today is Cade Metz, Senior Writer at Wired, and Jeff Bercovici, SF Bureau Chief for Inc. It's been an eventful couple weeks to say the least, and our panelists get right into. Kicking off is all things Google & Alphabet, which Cade covered extensively, into the Amazon controversy and work culture debate, next WTF is up with the Stock Market!? including, naturally, the latest on are we in a bubble-or-what, Ashley Madison hack scandal continues to drop jaws and erode any remaining illusions of online privacy, and the ethics of watching violent, terrorist-generated content online.

E572: Ben Nader, CEO/Founder of Butterfleye, launches Indiegogo today with his home security camera that is smart, wireless, portable, activity-based … and ready to ship

Joining Jason today is Ben Nader, CEO/Founder of Butterfleye, a smart, wireless, portable, activity-based home security camera that Jason has dubbed "the love child of GoPro and Dropcam." Ben is in the studio to announce his Indiegogo campaign launching 8/25/15 (at the time of this writing: TODAY!), and it's a special, unique one at that: the product is actually here, works beautifully, and is ready to ship. Ben shares his inspiration for the product, his experiences as a technical founder, hearing "no" 74 times before meeting Jason (who is an investor), the challenges and opportunities of innovating in hardware, why he went with Indiegogo, what's happening in security, how many full-time employees it takes to create a product -- and much more! [ Campaign at getbutterfleye.com ]

Jason's guest today is Larry Lessig (Harvard law professor, co-founder Creative Commons, and political activist) who just launched his latest incredible endeavor: an exploratory campaign to run as the Referendum President in 2016, to fix our nation's corrupt campaign and restore representative democracy. If Larry raises $1m by Labor Day, he will officially run. (Check out his crowdfunding campaign at lessigforpresident.com!) Larry stops by the studio during his campaign tour to talk with Jason about why his wants to run for the country's highest office and his bold vision for implementing change -- including his intention to serve only one day as President, just long enough to sign campaign reform into law and then turn the reigns of power over to his VP. It's an amazing conversation about corrupt government, what we should expect from a democracy, how far we've fallen, the solutions to turn it around (and the time is NOW), economic elitism, an unforgiving criminal justice system, progress in changing copyright laws, Larry's shortlist for VP (a very important choice considering his plan!) -- and MUCH more. You don't want to miss this.

Today’s guest, Carrie Southworth, is the Cofounder of Twigtale, a platform to create personalized children's books to help them through transitions (i.e., going to a new school, moving to a new home, new siblings, etc.). Jason and Carrie discuss how her having children inspired this idea, the brain science behind why stories are so effective in connecting with children, how experts have been recommending this teaching method forever but no one had modernized it until Twigtale, how the product is incredibly easy to use from desktop or the app, what it was like participating in the Disney accelerator (leading to a partnership with Disney), how Twigtale is trying to help parents raise integrated adults, how they raised a $1m SEED round from Larry Page, Ivanka Trump, and others, how they’ve employed only word-of-mouth marketing up to this point (which will change soon!), Carrie’s experiences acting in “Buffy: the Vampire Slayer” and “General Hospital” earlier in her career -- and much more!

Today: All #AskJason! Jason fires off answers to 10 super fan questions in his classic razor-sharp and information-packed style. Kicking off with a timely query about Zirtual and lessons for entrepreneurs, Jason shares his opinions on what happened, what could have gone better, and how to avoid similar situations. The insights keep rolling from there, with tactical advice on crushing your product launch, whether to crowdfund or raise first, breaking into SV from across the world, side-project etiquette, location-aware mobile apps, blogging and self-publishing, and an anonymous question from a startup who fears their product is being copycatted & shopped around (w/ complicit VCs...)

VC Jalak Jobanputra, Founder of FuturePerfect Ventures, brings her 20yrs investment experience to the LAUNCH Incubator 2 class and delivers a comprehensive breakdown of funding options for startups in 2015. The landscape is slippery and ever-shifting, but Jalak's pointed analysis of players in this "investor soup" -- including the pros/cons/consequences of aligning with each and essential questions founders need to ask of investors and of themselves -- gives us sure, solid footing. (Know your goals. Do not simply follow what everyone else is doing.) A must-listen.

Today Jason sits down with an incredible entrepreneur, Maren Kate Donovan, Founder and CEO of Zirtual. Maren’s startup provides remote EAs (called ZAs) for entrepreneurs, small teams, and professionals. Zirtual connects high quality professionals with companies desperate for help but not necessarily in a position to hire full-time, on-site staff. Jason and Maren discuss how the idea for Zirtual was born, what it was like moving 400 Zirtual Assistants from independent contracts to employees (and incurring 20%-30% more costs because of this), how most Zirtual Assistants have a “helper” personality type (helping others provides a lot of personal fulfillment), how the recent launch of Zirtual for Teams will be the product that 10x’s this business, how they have an $11 million run-rate after just $4 million in investment and four years operating, an upcoming beta test offering the 3-5 most specialized service requests soon (i.e. PowerPoint, etc.), what it was like to get Tony Hsieh as their first investor, what challenges Maren has faced as a female founder, and much more!

News Roundtable! Today joining Jason is Ben Parr (investor @dominatefund, author @captivology, ex- @mashable @cnet) & Declan McCullagh (founder, recent.io, ex- @CBS, @CNET, @Wired, @Time). The latest in Twitter lows & highs. Stocks in trouble and a leadership vacuum but ... cool new news tab! (For selected users.) A shot across the bow for all news apps? What's next for this enigmatic company that we're all addicted to? Also, content creation and the state/future of media, including Hank Green's recent Facebook slam which raised a million questions about Facebook vs. YouTube video. (And we answer most of them here.) Also: Declan's upcoming @recentapp, a thorough (and dishy) dissection of presidential candidates alternately courting and alienating Silicon Valley, Jason's tweet-chat with Jeb Bush, hacking & protesting in China, whither smart gun tech, cyber-attacks, should the U.S. government concern itself with building supercomputers, Jason's intentions both to run for president and write a book (you heard it here first!), and much more!

A special two-parter for you today. First up is Ahryun Moon, founder of EtchApp, a company that crushed this year's LAUNCH Hackathon and went onto product success, with their recent launch -- and feature -- in the Apple store. EtchApp is a multi-tasking replacement keyboard for devices so you can send messages & access services without switching -- and just might be, as Jason predicts, THE killer Watch app. We see the product in action, hear what inspired its creation (hint: learning Chinese), learn about what it's like innovate in this vertical, comparisons to U.S. and Korean markets, and how the LAUNCH Hackathon started it all...... THEN! It's the return of #AskJason! Jason takes questions from fans. Brace yourself!

Direct-to-consumer is one of the hottest trends in our industry. No retail, no malls, straight to the customer, and please pass the savings. Today Jason talks to direct-to-consumer entrepreneur Julie Fredrickson, who is innovating in a $60b market ripe for disruption: cosmetics. Stowaway creates make-up in small sizes that you can carry and finish, thereby reducing the inefficiency and waste that characterizes an industry which is 70% controlled by 10 conglomerates. Stowaway, co-founded by Julie and Chelsa Crowley, is also one of Jason's investments, so it's a great conversation about how he became involved, his thoughts on the space, Julie's experiences as a female founder, the power of a simple message for your product, the importance of a good referral program, what it's like to take on a backwards but powerful industry, and much more.

E563: Ali Vahabzadeh, founder of Chariot, hopes to change the way we move around cities with the first-ever crowdsourced shuttle service

Today Jason talks with Ali Vahabzadeh, Founder of Chariot, an entrepreneur hoping to change the way we move around cities. Despite recent innovations in private transportation options, mass transit remains mostly a mess. Even in cities where public transpo exists, there are always inaccessible routes and neighborhoods. Ali's Chariot offers an alternative with a commuter shuttle service, that has learned lessons from where other shuttles have failed and reinventing the model. Cost-effective, reliable, scalable and -- here's a first -- crowdsourced. Once a certain city route gets enough votes, service is launched there, guaranteeing riders. Jason and Ali discuss the nature of cities and transportation, the current broken system, we see the Chariots in action on the site (during rush hour), why it's important that Chariot drivers are W-2, the differences between operating in a drive-first city versus a transit-first city, Ali's upcoming plans to introduce social features -- and more. This is the second episode of our Tumml 2fer, featuring two founders who graduated from the Tumml accelerator & are tackling tough urban problems. (Interestingly, both went on to YC, as well.)

Jason wrote a blog post on "Trading Open Standards for Corporate Ones," in which he referred to the upward trend of corporate agents controlling what we read, especially on Twitter and Facebook. An example he used was Twitter permanently banning all of the accounts of blogger Chuck C. Johnson. Chuck reached out to Jason, who in turn invited Chuck into the studio to talk about censorship. What transpired is a conversation that takes many turns into the territories of aggressive journalistic tactics and controversial human beliefs. We'd love to hear what you think. Tweet @jason and be part of the conversation.

E561: Christine Boyle, founder of Valor Water Analytics, developed tools to fix our broken, archaic water system & recoup losses

Today we have a great episode on an important topic: water. It's one of the biggest problems we face as a society, especially with many regions experiencing drought. Joining Jason is Christine Boyle, founder of Valor Water Analytics, who tracks and finds the biggest culprit of our broken system -- waste. Poor data, faulty pipes, leaks and loss run amok! Christine explains the tools she's developed, with a 60%-2000% ROI, that focus on conservation and process efficiency rather than drastic, unrealistic measures. She and Jason talk data, bad water behavior, worst offenders, desalinization, evapotranspiration (say it fast!), William Shatner's wild ideas, where is that breaking point (for real), how San Francisco is more efficient than Los Angeles, is it necessary to flush urinals, and so much more! This is the first episode of our Tumml 2fer, featuring two founders who graduated from the Tumml accelerator & are tackling tough urban problems. (Interestingly, both went on to YC, as well.)

E560: Brian Hoffman’s OpenBazaar.org, a decentralized marketplace to buy/sell anything online with bitcoin, is a Big Idea with Big Backers

On today's show is Brian Hoffman, lead developer of OpenBazaar.org, a decentralized P2P open marketplace to buy and sell anything using bitcoin. Parallels to Silk Road abound, and Jason and Brian explore these in-depth, as well as discuss how this previously-believed unfundable idea secured $1m funding from heavyweights Andreessen Horowitz and Union Square Ventures, dive into the marketplace itself so we see how exactly it works, how sites like reddit and other technologies might decentralize and what that means, how Brian went from being a security consultant at Booz Allen Hamilton to creator of this radical marketplace for trading freedom online and becoming CEO at OB1, its umbrella startup -- and much more. It's a fascinating and slightly scary discussion you don't want to miss!

Today’s guest is Andy Weir, author of “The Martian,” NYT bestseller and soon to be a major motion picture directed by Ridley Scott & starring Matt Damon. For nearly 20 years, Andy has been a prolific writer, following his science fiction passion when not at his full-time computer engineering job. “The Martian,” which started as a serialized book on his website for a small loyal audience, was eventually discovered by Random House and the rest is history. Jason and Andy have a fascinating conversation about “The Martian” (the book & movie), science fiction, writing, creativity, and inspiration. The story, about an astronaut who has to survive for years on Mars after being accidentally left behind, is an intelligent and exciting exploration of how people use resources in unexpected ways to solve unexpected problems. Andy shares how his research was as scientifically accurate as possible (NASA is happy), why now is the best time in history to be a writer because there are no more gatekeepers, what it was like to find out Ridley Scott and Matt Damon would be doing the movie (but why he never popped any champagne), the differences between tours at NASA vs. SpaceX (hint: SpaceX is a rocket factory & they don’t have time to mess around!), why the key to space travel is driving the price down to where middle class demand can reach it, why he is an optimist about energy and our planet, we learn Jason and Andy’s favorite Ridley Scott movies, and much much more!

**apologies: audio low in spots during first 10 min** News Roundtable! Today joining Jason is Nellie Bowles of Re/code and Dave Mathews of NewAer. All the happenings at Reddit this week, plus predictions!! (Amazingly, some are proved right and some wrong -- not 5 minutes after this show ended!) What's up with those tech outages at NYSE, United, and WSJ this week -- glitches, hackers, end of days? (Dave has a definitive answer.) The first non-accredited investor, equity crowdfunding deal since the Title IV of Jobs Act, in the form of a sweet, 3-wheeled, 2 passenger vehicle. (But would any our panelists drive it?) Meerkat integrates Facebook, luxury pot on demand is FINALLY here, colorful (related) stories involving Nelle's Greek grandma, 23andMe becoming a unicorn, hackers gone wild, sex scandals and advertising at Cannes Lions, Tinder, Grindr -- you name it and our panelists cover it this week!

LAUNCH Incubator 2: Pinterest product Jason Shellen (formerly Google, AOL & founder of Boxer, Hike Labs) talks to the class about decks done right and why effective storytelling about your product and company is critically important to getting the right attention and excitement from investors. (Hint: people love stories, not decks.) From his successes in raising money for his companies, Jason shares essential deck do’s and dont’s, candid advice from investors on what they want to see in presentations, using your struggles, pain, and adversity to make your story better, what to do in the face of inevitable conflicting VC advice, when to send a deck (don’t), and much more. FOR MORE INFO/RESOURCES: check out Jason Shellen’s blog post about speaking to the Incubator class: https://medium.com/@shellen/7ba0f87429f8

Joining Jason today is Steven Kotler, NYT bestselling author of "Tomorrowland" & "The Rise of Superman," co-author (w/Peter Diamandis) of "Bold" & "Abundance," and co-founder of the Flow Genome Project. Jason and Steven dive deep into entrepreneurs' unique opportunities now to change the world, the science fictions that have already become science fact (hello, bionics!), the gathering steam (and storm) of exponential technologies, which world issues are currently terrifying scientists & which attract needless worry, the triggers & (amazing) benefits of the flow state, what ONE thing drives most successful people, and much more -- all while trying to outdo each other in "Blade Runner" quotes. Join us!

E555: A.J. Daulerio, Ratter.com founder & former Deadspin & Gawker EIC, talks about the battles, triumphs, opportunities & the specter of bankruptcy in the content world

Content businesses are incredibly hard, but that isn’t stopping today’s guest entrepreneur. Jason sits down with former Deadspin and Gawker Editor-In-Chief A.J. Daulerio, who has now launched Ratter.com, a network of a local tabloids & national news. Jason and A.J. discuss what it was like battling in the content business in the early 2000’s, how A.J. first got started at the failed gambling blog OddJack (and was eventually fired by Lockhart Steele), why A.J. and Nick Denton thought the local tabloid idea for Ratter would work even though the similar Patch.com had just failed, how A.J. plans to do stories that blow the doors off of everything else on the web (and how he plans to monetize it), why investigative journalism is so unique today with Twitter and live-video, why Twitter is more important than mainstream media (and why mainstream media should be paying people on Twitter), what made A.J.’s story covering Texas Rangers Josh Hamilton his first big hit, why Hulk Hogan is suing A.J. and Gawker for $100 million over a sex scandal story (which might bankrupt both of them), whether it is a good idea for journalists to pay for stories or not (hint: if it is absolutely crucial to a story and you do it infrequently -- yes), and so much more!

In this next installment of This Week in Startups/Inside Drones, we've got an exciting two-parter. First, Jason is on location at Skycatch, the first fully-autonomous, intelligent & scalable data retrieval/aerial robotics platform. Jason gets a chat and demo with CEO Christian Sanz and Senior Mechanical Engineer Fran Wang. Second, it's a product premiere!! In our studios is Bryan Elliot, CEO/Founder of PixiePath, who shows us his awesome new system of orchestrating drone fleets remotely. Bryan talks about his inspiration for developing this platform, his entrepreneurial journey, the latest in FAA regulations, and where we're headed! Join us!!

At the LAUNCH Incubator 2, Josh Elman, Partner at Greylock and longtime product manager (Twitter, Facebook Connect, LinkedIn, RealPlayer), breaks down the 4 key factors you need to understand about your company and product: (1) problem: what do people want?, (2) inception: how do we make them aware?, (3) adoption: how can we get them going?, and (4) retention: how does it become a habit? Don't miss this tactical and inspiring talk from a product pioneer!

Today Jason sits down with Rowan Trollope, tech pioneer and SVP/GM of the Collaboration Technology Group at Cisco. Despite incredible tech innovations in every aspect of our lives, video conferencing continues to be clunky, with only 5% of conference rooms equipped with a setup that works. Rowan's new, beautiful, and affordable product, Cisco Spark, aims to solve this problem once and for all, and get us to 100% video connected. Rowan shows us Cisco Spark in action. It's simple (you don’t need IT) and affordable (less than $2K) with no numbers or codes to dial and no pairing needed. We learn how Cisco is using an open community of startups on top of this platform to usher those companies into the enterprise, how Rowan introduced startup innovation into a big company by acquiring three startups (which then made up the Innovation Team on Cisco Spark), why most acquisitions fail (and why that doesn’t matter), how the most requested Slack feature is integration with real-time video, why agility (not efficiency) is what matters in an exponential world -- and how collaboration is essential for agility, why innovation needs to spread beyond Silicon Valley, how the on-demand economy is completely changing society, and so much more!

Powerhouse News Roundtable! Joining Jason today for a roaring good time is Benedict Evans, Partner Andreessen Horowitz/top tech analyst & Molly Wood, Host/Senior Tech Correspondent, APM's Marketplace. You'll want to listen a couple times to keep up with this epic, jam-packed, crackling convo. Learn exactly what is going on in tech funding (what year are we in, anyway? hint: not 1999), what's behind Apple's latest attempts to get into the game (of news & music), Twitter's catch-22 and all its puzzles wrapped in an enigmatic business model, Microsoft's biggest opportunities, THE most burning virtual reality questions, among them: are investors ready?, what will reign supreme: games, education, or porn?, will Molly ever finish watching that first-person VR horror movie she was too scared to finish?, and will Benedict finally commit to a 1-10 rating for Mad Max? (I mean, how many times does Jason have to ask?) And MUCH MORE.

E550: 3D Robotics CEO/Founder Chris Anderson on his hottest new drones, the evolution of the hardware renaissance, why he created an open source community & how he built America’s biggest drone maker

It's our second show for Drone Week & the launch of the "Inside Drones" podcast! Chris Anderson, former "Wired" Editor-in-Chief turned CEO/Founder of 3DRobotics (3DR) invites Jason to Berkeley, CA, to talk & fly the hottest drones. It's an amazing conversation where Chris explains his journey from "Wired" to becoming obsessed with drones after building one out of legos with his kids, to starting an open source drone community, to building 3DR -- the biggest drone maker in America. Jason and Chris dive into the history of how this incredible technology came to be, exactly how drones are bound (or not bound) by the laws of physics and/or government, and what we can expect (dream!) for the future. We see some of Chris's greatest hits, upcoming releases ... and watch Jason and Chris fly them on his roof deck! Join us!

It’s Drones Week and the official launch of This Week in Startups / Inside Drones podcast! Drones are becoming ready for primetime. They are safe, easy to fly, and are now able to do actual commerce in the world because regulations are becoming reasonable. Our first drones guest expert this week is Helen Greiner, Founder & CEO of CyPhyWorks (a drone robotics company), also Cofounder of iRobot and inventor of the Roomba vacuuming machine. Tune in as Jason and Helen have an exciting drone demo & discussion about what makes hexacopters far superior to quadcopters and helicopters, how CyPhyWorks was able to blow their Kickstarter campaign goal out of the water and raised more than $500,000 for their first hexacopter (which will retail for under $600!), how seeing R2-D2 in Star Wars for the first time is when Helen knew she wanted to build machines that were more than machines, why real-time social sharing is important with drone flying, how there has FINALLY been a proposed set of FAA commercial drone regulations that will make commerce possible, and how Helen wants her company to be the drones delivering packages to your home. Jason also gets a chance to live demo the CyPhyWorks LVL 1 drone! Join us!

E547: Jeff Dachis, former CEO/Founder Razorfish, is changing the way people manage diabetes with OneDrop

On today's show is entrepreneur extraordinaire Jeff Dachis, former CEO/Founder of Razorfish & current CEO/Founder of OneDrop.today, an incredible management & social platform for people with diabetes that won Best Design at LAUNCH Festival 2015. Soon after Jeff learned that he had diabetes in 2013, he discovered the complete lack of tools available to manage it -- and decided to invent them. OneDrop, a Waze for diabetes, pulls together data that is normally siloed, and gives users all the information they need, in one place: tracking glucose levels, meals consumed, exercise & activity information, and much more. OneDrop also connects users, letting them share their data & support each other's endeavors. Jeff walks us through an awesome demo of his product, including sneak previews of features & new monitors coming soon. It's a rich conversation in which Jason and Jeff also discuss the need for more prevention-based healthcare solutions in our problem-based system, health care versus self care, disease management as a market, the differences between diabetes types 1 and 2 (and the future/hope for each...), what Jeff has learned on his entrepreneurial journey since web 1.0 (hint: talent is everything) -- and more. Join us!!

All "Ask Jason"/Shark Tank is back! Today’s show, hosted at the Samsung Global Innovation Center, features companies asking for Jason’s honest advice on their fledging startups, and entrepreneurs asking Jason their most burning questions. And the ideas sparkle & fly! We meet a music event startup, a virtual reality startup, a live video journalism app (reverse Periscope), an on-demand personal assistant app, an idea network, and more. Jason covers the importance of conducting user interviews, the importance of solving a singular problem really well, why the metaverse (a 3D version of the web) will not be productized, how working on virtual reality now feels like working on the internet right before broadband (a 5-10 year journey), why crowdsourcing live video for journalism is a GREAT idea, how it can be better to focus on getting one high-profile partnership than growing organically, the main criterion for Jason typically to invest (contrary to most investors!), execution > money, the huge advantage of working in a wide open space -- and so much more!

#TWiSTLive!! Virtual reality is an exciting & hotly debated space. Its potential is massive, but will it ever really "arrive"? In today's live show, recorded at Samsung Global Innovation Center, Jason answers this question with a resounding YES, as he demos the latest & greatest VR and hosts a riveting fireside chat with Amir Rubin, VR pioneer & CEO of Sixense, a premiere virtual reality platform. After a lively demo of Sixense's cutting-edge, award-winning products, Jason talks with Amir about his inspirations, the state of the field, and what's coming. We learn why VR is not just about gaming but about every industry (esp. healthcare, education), why motion sickness is no longer an issue, how technologies like 3D printing help VR immensely, how developers are building amazing applications on the Sixense platform, how every phone going forward will be VR ready, why VR is so effective in training for high-risk jobs like welders & pilots, why service providers will give VR headsets away for free, how VR is going to be a new way for creative people to monetize their skills, how movie studios can use VR for you to actually experience being the super hero, why the biggest challenge facing VR is educating consumers -- and much much more!

It's News Roundtable Friday! Joining Jason today is Jessica Lessin, Founder & Editor-in-Chief of The Information and Ari Levy, Senior Technology Reporter at CNBC. The three tackle the latest, greatest, juiciest stories of late in this epic episode. Nothing is left off the table. Secret's bank heist, how Google is like Game of Thrones, is Android poised for world domination?, the combustible combination of venture + journalism, and several of the greatest existential questions of our time: what is the future of advertising on mobile, what happens when you give nerds $20m, and when will Amazon start delivering weed?? And, oh, so much more.